Press Kit (August 30th/31st, 2012) - Goldmann Public Relations ...

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights
Contemporary Arts Exhibition in Mechelen and Brussels
01.09. – 10.12.2012
CHAPTER TWO: OLD MECHELEN MEAT MARKET
The second chapter of NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights at the Old
Mechelen Meat Market focuses on so-called ‘second-generation human
rights’, which are social, economic and cultural in nature. These rights
concern the basic necessities of life and access to essential social and
economic goods, amenities and opportunities. Social rights are those that
are necessary for full participation in the life of society. They include the
right to education, health care and the right to found and maintain a family.
Economic rights include the right to work, protection at the workplace, to a
decent standard of living, to housing and social security. Cultural rights refer
to a community's cultural way of life and local custom and include the right
to participate freely in the cultural life of the community without
discrimination.
The emergence of second-generation rights can be traced back to
industrialization, the rise of the working class and subsequent workers’
struggles. In the post-war era they were tied to the emergence and
establishment of the welfare state and the concept of social security, which
is now increasingly under threat, particularly here in Europe, the birthplace
of the modern welfare state.
Second-generation rights call for equal conditions and an equitable
treatment of citizens. They advocate equal opportunities, the equal
distribution of wealth, workers’ rights and protection at the workplace,
healthcare and protection of the weaker or elderly members of society by
means of pensions and social benefits. This part of the exhibition includes
contributions by artists whose practice has focused on issues of work
housing and education and pays tribute to the increasingly fading ideal of
the social state, which is being sacrificed in the name of privatization and
neo-liberal ideology with devastating effects on increasing members of the
community.
Finally, although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
enshrined "the equal rights of men and women", the question of women’s
rights did not gain real momentum until the 1960s with the feminist
movement which pointed out the commodification of the image of women
and the problematics of the male gaze, a subject touched upon in this
chapter. Overall, the issue of gender rights recurs also in other parts of the
exhibition.
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