The Link Between Art and Injustice

April 15, 2011

© Daniel Bolick

CAN WE ALWAYS RELY ON EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY AND MEMORY as part of our criminal justice system? The number of wrongfully convicted persons says otherwise.

The people who serve time for crimes they did not commit demonstrates how mistaken identification hinders justice and forever alters the lives of those convicted.

Two artists who document the exonerated form part of a new exhibition, Resurrected: The Innocence Portraits, opening at the The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The exhibit coincides with the first international Innocence Network Conference on wrongful conviction.

Included in the exhibition are the portraits of exonerees by Daniel Bolick and the photographs of Taryn Simon.

The men in Bolick’s portraits served 203 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Bolick’s paintings humanize what would otherwise be another statistic.

© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon’s project from 2003, The Innocents examines the role of photography as a misused tool for meting out justice. Simon photographs subjects at the “scene of the crime” or the places where they were arrested.

See Daniel Bolick’s portraits at his official site. You can view Taryn Simon’s work here.

Filed under Activists, Art, civil rights Tagged with , ,

America 2049: Why Human Rights Is More Than A Game

April 14, 2011

IN THE FACEBOOK-BASED GAME “AMERICA 2049,” SOCIAL ACTIVISM-MEETS-’24′, all in the name of building awareness for human rights issues. The creators hope players will see human rights as more than just a game.

The global human rights organization Breakthrough developed the game and populated it with well-known celebs and stars (Victor Garber, Harold Perrineau) who act out the “story”: over 12 weeks, players take on missions dealing with immigration, race, sexual orientation, sex trafficking, religion, labor, and national security.

The nonfiction, issues-related part of the game comes through the involvement of groups who are members of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.

Will this social conscience aspect add or detract from the game experience? And can it make a difference in the real world?

Social justice and video games is nothing new, but with the proliferation of social media the idea of games for social impact keeps gaining momentum.

Social justice games have been the subject of a panel at the SXSW Festival. Breakthrough was also in attendance this past weekend at the National Conference for Media Reform panel on fan communities and social change.

And there is always old guard Games For Change, who will host its eighth annual conference this June in New York.

But leveraging the power and prevalence of Facebook with a game is an intriguing idea. There’s certainly potential for Facebook users to raise awareness for a cause.

The subject of human rights is not one that ignites a fire under those people who are more interested in Angry Birds or Call of Duty. Do either of those two games make one think about, say, food insecurity or the effects of war?

The fact is people already use Facebook to bring attention to a cause or issue. We all know Facebook has even been credited with a revolution (see: Egypt). Aren’t those who want to make a social impact already doing so, without the help of a game?

Will a Facebook-tied game make you more aware of an issue if it comes in the form of entertainment? Judge for yourself:

Filed under Human Rights, multimedia Tagged with ,

Syria’s Voice and Conscience: Omar Amiralay

April 13, 2011

reelfestivals.org

HE NEVER SHIED AWAY from confronting and exposing the social and economic injustices of his home. Syrian filmmaker Omar Amiralay was Syria’s voice and conscience.

Amiralay was a longtime pro-democracy supporter; in 2000, he was a signatory of the Damascus Declaration, which led to the “Damascus Spring.” When he died this past February, he left a legacy of documentary films that exposed and confronted poverty and oppression.

Amiralay’s career in documentary filmmaking spanned the five decades of the ruling Ba’ath Party. As the protests of the last month show no signs of abating, we can look to Amiralay’s films as a guide to what has shaped Syria and how her people have arrived at this point in their history.

This clip from Amiralay’s third film, “The Chickens,” documents how peasants suffered after the government’s failed farming ventures:

Amiralay did not only focus on his home country. His later films addressed social movements and activism in Yemen, Lebanon, and Egypt. This essay is a good overview of his groundbreaking and far-reaching work.

Watch more clips of Omar Amiralay’s on this YouTube channel. For more on Omar Amiralay, including interviews with the filmmaker, visit ArteEast.

Filed under Activists, film, Politics, Poverty Tagged with ,

What Would It Cost To Save the World?

April 12, 2011

GLOBAL MILITARY SPENDING IS AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH of 1.5 trillion dollars—if you could spend that money on something else, what would you choose? Education, healthcare, or poverty reduction…?

What would it cost to save the world?

Two organizations, the International Peace Bureau (IPB) and Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) advocate for a new paradigm where military expenditures do not exceed what is spent on human needs. They’ve organized a Global Day of Action on Military Spending on April 12.

The following video, from campaign partner Fundació per la Pau, demonstrates how much is spent on maternal and child mortality and combating infectious diseases, vs. military spending:

For more on today’s global day of action on military spending, visit the official website.

Filed under Human Rights

Why Supporting Freedom of Speech is More Important Than Ever

April 11, 2011 1 Comment

ARTISTS AND ACTIVISTS ARE STEPPING UP their actions for detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. His enforced disappearance, rather than bringing silence and acquiescence, has instead galvanized his supporters:

Arts institutions like LACMA, the Tate Modern, and MOMA have signed a petition calling for his release (you can add your name here).

In Hong Kong on Sunday, the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China held a demonstration demanding the artist’s release:

And as this piece in the Wall Street Journal shows, if China hoped to silence its critics with these enforced disappearances and thuggery, well, it isn’t working: activists continue to speak out.

People inside China who speak publicly risk their lives. That isn’t the case of all of us lucky enough to be able to say and write whatever we like without fear of reprisal, detention, or disappearance. Supporting freedom of speech is more important than ever.

“Speaking out” can take many forms—if the media brouhaha around one particular artist is any indication.

This week the Western press is replete with stories about “Bob Dylan, the sell-out,” for not talking about Ai Weiwei by name at Dylan’s concert in Beijing. This is because Dylan is a symbol (though usually a reluctant one) of the American 1960′s protest movement, and his songs and lyrics, like “Masters of War,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” to name just two, are clarion calls of protest and activism.

A piece in The Atlantic makes a case that Dylan did in fact manage to comment on the rights situation in China: albeit in his usual subversive way.

Whether we are world-famous rock stars or ordinary citizens, we are at the proverbial fork in the road, a moment in history where we must speak out. This year’s pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East, which are still spinning and spiraling in revolution, prove that. We must not shrink away from this moment. Ai Weiwei, and everyone who is denied his basic human freedoms, are counting on us.

Filed under Activists, Art Tagged with ,

‘Bearing Witness’ for Survivors of Abu Ghraib

April 8, 2011

"The Broomstick Was Metal" 2008 © Daniel Heyman

LOOKING INTO THE FACES OF FORMER ABU GHRAIB DETAINEES is to confront pain and suffering, but also some measure of survival. It forces the viewer to see the human cost of the U.S. government’s recent history and practice of torture.

In his portrait series, “Bearing Witness,” artist Daniel Heyman looks into the face of this history directly. Heyman is a first-person witness to the aftermath of imprisonment of over 40 Iraqis held and subsequently released from Abu Ghraib.

Heyman sat in on interviews between human rights lawyers and these former Abu Ghraib detainees, sketching not only their images but adding their testimony as part of the overall work.

"They Took Me To A Dark Room," 2008 © Daniel Heyman

On his site, Heyman writes about the impact of hearing first-hand the experiences of the detainees:

I am a proud American citizen who needed to know the truth of what was happening. In 2004, when the first reports of Americans torturing Iraqis appeared, I no longer recognized my own country. My only stake in the matter was that I love my country and what it stands for in the world —civil rights, the rule of law, habeas corpus, and something as simple as the right to wear clothing in prison. I have no special access to information and no security clearance. I only have my ears and a desire to listen to what happened. I continue to be astonished and disturbed at what I’ve seen and heard. (Source)

“Bearing Witness” is currently on view at the White Box Gallery at the University of Oregon in Portland through May 14, 2011. See more of Daniel Heyman’s portraits at his official site.

Filed under Art, Human Rights Tagged with , ,

Burma’s Hope for A New Democracy

April 7, 2011

THE STORY OF HOW A FORMER JUNTA MEMBER and soldier, Myo Myint, changed sides and became a pro-democracy activist is the subject of the film Burma Soldier. Now, secretly made copies of the film are making the rounds in Burma. The producers of the film have also made the film available in Burmese through Vimeo, and it’s gone viral.

The film’s upcoming release in the U.S. (it’s scheduled to air on HBO in May), is good timing for Burma watchers: all eyes are on how the recent regime change will play out.

The film, co-directed by co-directed by Nic Dunlop, Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, goes inside the military and effectively reveals how Burma became a military dictatorship. It’s also a very personal look at one man’s life and how he comes to understand his nation’s history and his place in it. “I will fight for peace,” he says in the film. “That’s what I decided.”

Here is a photo essay about Myo Myint, and the story of how he switched sides. You can watch the film in its entirety on Vimeo (in Burmese):

Filed under Activists, film, Human Rights Tagged with ,

The Price of Freedom In China

April 6, 2011

© Ai Weiwei

LIFE FOR ACTIVISTS AND DISSIDENTS IN CHINA GROWS MORE DESPERATE after this week’s extrajudicial detention of artist Ai Weiwei. He was last seen Sunday as he tried to board a flight to Hong Kong.

It’s the latest, and most high profile, arrest of any dissident so far in China’s latest crackdown on dissidents and artists.

China is afraid of an Arab-style uprising. Persistent and anonymous calls for a “jasmine revolution” keep cropping up. Ai Weiwei, always an outspoken critic of China’s ruling communist party, made no secret of his support for civil disobedience.

Meanwhile, the dissidents are rounded up: there were dozens of arrests last week.

It was not until Ai Weiwei’s forced disappearance that governments joined human rights groups in condemning China’s actions, including the United States, France, and Germany.

The EU and China have a scheduled dialogue for the end of May. This is yet another opportunity for democratic nations to fully engage China and call them out for their lack of human rights. The EU must not let China slither away with its double talk about “misunderstandings.”

The appeasement of China must stop.

Time and again China acts preemptively, and with impunity, to silence dissent, while the West looks the other way or wrings its hands, and releases mealy-mouth statements to “free such-and-such.”

Liu Xiaobo is still in prison. So are thousands of political prisoners held in China. And China’s occupation of Tibet continues with the arrests, torture, and deaths of thousands of Tibetans.

Dissent in China is real, otherwise the government wouldn’t be reacting so violently. The nascent flowering of revolution was nipped in the bud (here’s a timeline of how the original non-protests went down), but repression will not make it go away.

We’ve forgotten that revolutions once happened without cell phones, the Internet, or computers. They happened by word-of-mouth, pamphleteering, meetings between people.

In 1989, there was no Internet—but students organized in Tiananmen Square anyway.

It’s true this generation doesn’t know a world without digital connection. And the people who remember Tiananmen, or who were there and survived, may not be able to speak of it today. But that’s what China needs now: the passed note and human voice. It’s time to rescue the old tools of revolution.

The human voice is ultimately the most powerful tool we have: we must speak up, and speak loudly. We must all do this now to support democracy and defend the voiceless.

For more on how to support human rights in China, visit Chinese Human Rights Defenders or Human Rights in China.

Filed under China, Human Rights

Which Are The Most Corrupt Countries in The World?

April 5, 2011

WHEN WE HEAR THE WORD CORRUPTION we tend to go with the usual, least trustworthy suspects such as government and police—but how about other institutions, like education or health services? How corrupt are these institutions, and in which countries are they most corrupt?

A global survey by Transparency International revealed that corruption is increasing—what might be surprising is how and why corruption is going up.

According to the poll, one in four people reporting paying bribes in 2009. There’s a tendency to believe that if corruption is happening, it has nothing to do with us personally. But we’d be wrong about our own involvement.

As this graphic shows, the percentage of respondents who paid a bribe was highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, at 56 percent:
© Transparency International

Petty bribery increased the most in Chile, Colombia, Kenya, FYR Macedonia, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Senegal and Thailand. And bribery was most often an activity of the poor and the young.

The survey also asked respondents who they believed to be the most corrupt. In this category, political parties were the clear “winner” in over two dozen countries:

© Transparency International

You can click through these interactive graphics to get results on individual countries on Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer, including more detailed results and true stories of people’s experiences with corruption.

Filed under multimedia Tagged with , ,

The Soul Music Inside The Civil Rights Movement

April 4, 2011

Down to Earth, dir. by David Moreu

THE SOUL MUSIC SCENE OF THE 1960s is intimately linked with the civil rights movement.

Today, on the 43rd anniverary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, we can look to the city where he died, Memphis, as a focal point for the link between the singers and musicians of the time and MLK’s movement.

“Music was such a tremendous part of the civil rights movement, even from the days of slavery“—Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles

“Down to Earth” is a short documentary by independent journalist David Moreu. His film revisits the musicians and activists who were part of the scene, including the Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles, Stax Records composers Deanie Parker and David Porter, and Zelma Redding (Otis Redding’s wife).

The film begins with recollections of the day of Dr. King’s assassination and is set along Beale St. and inside the barbershops and beauty salons of Memphis.

Watch the complete film below:

Filed under civil rights, music, News Tagged with , ,

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