WO
and housing issues with human rights, but This workshop addressed how the arts can be
these are not currently recognised as rights in used to increase understanding of human rights
the Human Rights Act. How can we use ESCR in the UK. R
to appeal to the general public without making
K
Presentations
promises beyond what the Human Rights Act
S
Opening the workshop, Professor Liam H
can actually deliver?
Kennedy (Chair) from University College O
• Human rights education: The education
Dublin emphasised how visual arts can cross the
system should celebrate human rights –
P
boundaries between ‘us and them’ or ‘here or
education is the key to changing public
S
there’. He showed an image of a man and child
E
attitudes and young people are very receptive
in a prisoner of war camp in Iraq in 2002 – a
S
to human rights.
discomforting vision of cruelty and kindness.
S
I
He explored the assumption that witnessing a
O
Recommendations
• Human Rights activists and advocates must
human rights violation inevitably arouses concern
N
coordinate our messages to allow a strong
in people and moves them to action. When S
and unified vision of what a human rights
portraying human rights we must ask ourselves:
culture could achieve.
what are the effects and affects? What are the
• We must extend the human rights debate
conventions being used in the art? What are the
beyond conferences, frontline professionals
feelings evoked? What is made of sentimentality?
and lawyers, and enable a genuinely inclusive
and wide debate about human rights. “Visual arts can cross the boundaries between ‘us
• To engage the wider public about human and them’ or ‘here or there’”.
rights, we must find creative ways of showing
Professor Liam Kennedy
their relevance to each and every person in
the UK.
Actress Amber Agar then performed a
testimony from a Ugandan woman seeking
Visually Representing refugee status in the UK, taken from ‘Asylum
Human Rights
Monologues’, an Actors for Human Rights
production. Artistic Director Christine Bacon
introduced the work of this organisation, which
Overview
uses documentary plays as awareness-raising
Visual images and dramatisations have great
tools. The plays can be taken to any part of the
power to evoke compassion: they can test UK at any time and have been performed to
the limits of society’s imagination and our over 20,000 people since 2006.
understanding of what it means to be human. Performance artist Monica Ross, then
From left to right: Jiwan Raheja, Kamal Ahmed and Dr Emily Gray, explore public attitudes to human rights
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