The Arts of Human Rights: Day Two
WiSER invites you to
The Arts of Human Rights: A workshop collaboration between Bard College and the University of Witwatersrand
Co-Organized by Thomas Keenan, Jonathan Klaaren, and Drew Thompson
Video of Justice Zak Yacoob is below.
5-7 August 2014
All events to be held at WiSER unless noted otherwise
Work in and on the field of human rights, thanks largely to its intense engagement with various forms of media, has increasingly taken an artistic turn. And contemporary art seems more interested than ever in experimenting with political claims and critiques posed in terms of human rights. The “Arts of Human Rights” is a two-day workshop collaboration between Bard College and the University of Witwatersrand. At one level, through presentations by curators, practicing artists, legal advocates, and social scientists, we seek to explore the language and discourses of human rights and the arts in ways that identify and interrogate the political spaces, styles of activism, and the force of the arts beyond the rhetoric of legality and problem-solving that currently dominates more traditional forms of human rights discourse. At another level, this collaboration will foster an intellectual community of like-minded colleagues across our institutional networks in an ongoing effort to establish an intellectual platform for future research and teaching exchanges.
Programme: 7 August 2014
9:30 - 11:00 p.m.: Law, Literature, & Human Rights Narratives
Kerry Bystrom (Bard College/Bard College Berlin), “Literature, Remediation, Remedy (A Case in Transitional Justice)”
Lisa Vetten (WiSER), “Daughters of the Revolution: Spectacle and narrative in S v Zuma”
Justice Zak Yacoob (former Con Court/Wits Law), “Judicial Persuasion”
Download the video in Mpeg4 format (550 mb).
11:00 - 11:30 a.m.: Tea
11:30 - 1:00 p.m.: Restoring Justice through Archiving and Exhibition
Stacey Vorster (Wits School of Arts), “Reimagining the Constitutional Court Art Collection”
Susan Merriam (Bard College), “Unruly Displays: The 1993 Whitney Biennial and its Reception”
Catherine Kennedy (South African History Archive), “archive (v)”
1:00-2:00 p.m.: Lunch
2:00 - 4:00 p.m.: Ubuntu & Kant
Lucy Allais (Wits Philosophy) and Thad Metz (University of Johannesburg), chaired by Eusebius McKaiser
5:00 - 7:00 p.m.: Neo Muyanga in Concert
At the Forecourt at WITS Art Museum