In order to sustainably change the law, a transformation of social power relations is needed – and new laws have to be created. This is why ECCHR initiates and participates in legal and law-related policy debates, organizes public events and publishes on selected topics. We also see cooperation with artists as an opportunity to reach people, to heighten their awareness of injustice and to allow for new perspectives. We believe that art can offer those affected by injustices a platform to be heard and to collectively address the legacies of conflicts.
Cluster
Activism & Art
Projects (7)
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Institute – Cooperation museums/theaters – Art & human rights
Interventions in the public sphere
How do we bring about social change? Since its inception, ECCHR has always attempted to find new answers to this question. Most often, we take the legal route – and attempt to draw attention to both past and existing injustice through specifically selected cases. Yet, this cannot be enough, which is why ECCHR continues to collaborate with cultural institutions such as museums and theaters.
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Cooperation – Cooperation Forensic Architecture – Investigative Commons
From museum to courtroom: Investigative Commons reinvents legal investigations
In search of new ideas for the creative and public enforcement of human rights, we founded Investigative Commons in 2020. The multidisciplinary cooperation is a result of years of collaboration between ECCHR and the research agency Forensic Architecture.
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Institute – Conversations – Art & human rights
Artists and lawyers in dialogue
How can we combine artistic and legal interventions to strengthen social and human rights movements? ECCHR and Allianz Kulturstiftung ask this question in our project “Transformation through the arts and law – Artistic and legal interventions.”
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Institute – Art & human rights – Exhibitions
Exhibitions at ECCHR
Since its establishment, ECCHR has been working with artists from all over the world. At our office, we regularly exhibit work by artists who, like us, protest against human rights abuses – be it the crimes of the Brazilian military dictatorship, the unlawful border regime at the US-Mexican border or the exploitation of Palestinian migrant workers in Israel.
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Institute – Cooperation Academy of Fine Arts – (Post)Colonialism
(Post)colonial injustice and legal interventions
The development of international law is closely interwoven with European colonialization. Colonial violence was frequently covered up and injustice developed into a legal system. With the Koloniales Erbe/Colonial Repercussions event series, ECCHR examined the structures of colonial power relations, which continue to impact on science, art and society today.
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Institute – Cooperation Academy of Fine Arts – Justice and Memory
Memory and Justice
The symposium Memory and Justice at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin created a platform for interdisciplinary debates – spanning various epochs and regions – on legal proceedings, inquiries and other state responses to grave crimes and the extent of civil society participation in these processes.
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Institute – Cooperation Forensic Architecture – KiK
The KiK/Pakistan case in Germany – 3D simulation as architectural analysis
The 18 minute video from Forensic Architecture details the lack of stairs, emergency exits, fire extinguishers and fire alarms in the factory. Inadequate fire safety measures at the company, a supplier for the German clothes retailer KiK, led to the agonizing deaths of 258 factory workers in the blaze.
