Description

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THROUGH THE RUINS: TALKS ON HUMAN RIGHTS AN THE ARTS 1 is the inaugural volume in a series of publications dedicated to exploring creative tools of resistance. THROUGH THE RUINS is based on public talks presented at the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College (CHRA) by Faustin Linyekula (Kisangani); The White Pube (London); Cassils (LA); Emily Johnson (New York); Border Forensics (London); Ashmina Ranjit (Nepal); Mark Sealy (London); and Hamed Sinno (Philadelphia). In their own words and in conversation with others, these activists, scholars, and artists from around the globe make evident the richness and range of contemporary practices at the intersection of human rights and the arts. Each chapter is introduced by a different scholar or curator and is then followed by a Q&A with a live, international audience. The text is further enhanced by the collection’s emphatic typography and creative design by Will Brady that guide the reader through chapters rich in personal story, theory, and history.

About the Author

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Fawz Kabra is the co-founder and director of Brief Histories, an art gallery and publishing platform based in New York. She has served as Assistant Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, and has curated exhibitions at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit; BRIC Arts and Media House, Brooklyn; Art Dubai Projects. Her writing and interviews have been published in Art Papers, Canvas, Ibraaz, Protozine, Ocula. Kabra earned her MA at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in 2013.

Tania El Khoury is a live artist and the director of the OSUN Center for Human Rights & the Arts at Bard College where she is also Distinguished Artist in Residence in the Theatre & Performance Department.

CASSILS is an internally exhibiting transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances.

Charles Heller is the co-founder of Border Forensics, a research and investigation agency that seeks to document and contest border violence in all its forms.

Emily Johnson is an award-winning artist who makes body-based work as well as a land and water protector and activist.

Faustin Linyekula is a dancer, choreographer, director, storyteller and the founder of the Studios Kabako, an art and community space in Kisangani, DRC.

Lorenzo Pezzani is the co-founder of Border Forensics, a research and investigation agency that seeks to document and contest border violence in all its forms.

The White Pube is the collaborative identity of Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad under which they publish reviews and essays about art, video games, and food.

Ashmina Ranjit is a Nepalese conceptual artist, activist, and the creator of the art hub LASANAA / NexUs.

Mark Sealy is a writer, curator, the director of London-based photographic arts institution Autograph ABP, and currently the Principal Fellow Decolonising Photography at University of the Arts London.

Hamed Sinno was the writer and front-person for Mashrou' Leila in Beirut, and is now a New York based musician, poet, vocal instructor, and social justice advocate.