Arts & Human Rights: Conversing multiplicities
as part of the IGNITE CHANGE campaign 2023
Dec 8, 2023 — 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The Human Rights Research and Education Centre (HRREC) is pleased to present this webinar as part of the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights' 2023 Ignite Change Campaign:
Arts & Human Rights: Conversing multiplicities
Under the leadership of our HRREC members, Oonagh Fitzgerald and Ramon Blanco-Barrerra, join us for this webinar where arts and human rights practitioners and advocates from around the world will share works, experiences, and ideas about what it means to be human in the posthuman cyborg Anthropocene. Through multimedia explorations and collaborations, artists, dancers, academics, and musicians develop and animate a manifesto on building positive relations between the arts and human rights, revealing and championing a multiplicity of perspectives.
Our speakers
Oonagh Fitzgerald | Facilitator
HRREC Senior Fellow
Oonagh Fitzgerald is Senior Fellow at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa; President of the International Law Association of Canada, INDI PhD candidate in Fine Arts, Concordia University; Member of RISE collaborative improvisational micro-operas. Oonagh is an artist and performer, teacher and thought leader, focused on using art and performance to enhance human rights and inclusion and environmental protection and sustainability in her community and the wider world.
Ramon Blanco-Barrera | Facilitator
HRREC Community Member
Ramon Blanco-Barrera is a Community Member at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa; Faculty Member, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Seville; Advisory Board Member, Emergent Art Space. Ramon is a social catalyst & artist who sends social and political messages intended to inspire people to reflect about their communities, both local and universal, in order to claim on human rights, including environmental defence.
Grazia Peduzzi
Founder | Emergent Art Space
Grazia Peduzzi has a degree and background in teaching Philosophy. In 2011 she founded Emergent Art Space, a nonprofit organization that she directs, offering cross cultural communication and exchange platforms for young artists around the world.
Ann Wettrich
Director of Program | Emergent Art Space
Ann Wettrich works as an artist, educator and executive consultant, engaging pressing social and cultural concerns. Currently, as Director of Programs for Emergent Art Space, she works with young artists across the globe.
Eldad Tsabary
Associate Professor of Music
Eldad Tsabary is Associate Professor, Music; Chair, Department of Music; Co-director of Performing Arts Research Cluster (Le PARC), Concordia University and Principal Investigator for SSHRC funded project Reflective Iterative Scenario Enactments (RISE), a collaborative improvisational micro-operas.
Kofi Oduro
Live-coder, Musician, Visual Artist
Kofi Oduro is a live-coder, musician and a visual artist. He is a member of RISE collaborative improvisational micro-operas. (Photo by Valentina Plata.)
Stanley Février
Visual artist & Sculptor
Visual artist and sculptor. A graduate in visual and media arts, his artistic and conceptual concerns are based on institutional critique, identity issues and the violence and inequalities they engender. (Photo by Jean Turgeon.)
Elsy Zavarce
Visual & Photographic Artist-Researcher
Elsy Zavarce is a visual and photographic artist-researcher. She is interested in the art process and how art making is a way to foster communities. From early on, she was interested in exploring notions of identity, social issues, urban sensibility, and cultural diversity. Now an immigrant, she reflects on her history, memories, and experiences, and through the eyes of an artist expresses her response in a critical and sensitive way.
Jay Marchand Knight
Doctor of voice pedagogy, opera singer & educator focused on gender diversity
Jay Marchand Knight is a doctor of voice pedagogy, an opera singer and educator focused on gender diversity; INDI Ph.D. student in Fine Arts, Concordia University; Member of RISE collaborative improvisational micro-operas. They love to sing and make music almost as much as they love to teach others about singing and making music. Their goal is to create a safe and inclusive learning environment, where students' goals, needs, and learning styles set the tone for learning.
Philon Nguyen
Opera composer
Philon Nguyen is an opera composer and has studied film music at UQAM and completed a PhD in Information and Systems Engineering at CIISE. He is currently completing a PhD in Fine Arts under Dr. Eldad Tsabary. His work is published at Universal Edition. The relationship between agency and art has once more been challenged by current AI techniques. Following Heidegger’s broken hammer parable that a normal hammer is ordinary while a broken hammer is a poem, we use and misuse the DYCI2 software (IRCAM) to generate new material (in the sense of Adorno) in the context of New Music.
On the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this ten-day campaign will profile and facilitate public discourse on the principles and values instilled within the United Nations’ Declaration. Our intention is that we will walk away with a strengthened commitment, confidence, trust and capacity for a movement of action towards the advancement of dignity, justice, peace, and freedom.