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
ABSTRACT
“If it remains necessary, the declaration of human rights has today become
insufficient. We can no longer be satisfied with abstract rights, managed by
an economic totalitarianism which abstracts human being and empties him
and her of their vital substance. The rights of man are not vested rights but
rights that have to be conquered. The Declaration of the Rights of the
human being, the right to be a human being, marks the progress of
consciousness and puts into motion the emergence of a society freed from
barbarism.” (Raoul Vaneigem)
In this text (originally published in 2001, translated into English by Liz Heron
and published by Pluto Press in 2004), Vaneigem sets out quite literally to
create a new declaration of human rights, by updating earlier classic
declarations – from the French Revolution to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights of 1948 – on the grounds that ‘we can no longer make do
with the liberties derived from free exchange, while the free circulation of
capital is establishing a tyranny that reduces humankind and the earth to a
commodity’. Both playful, poetic and provocative, as well as idealistic and
utopian, the text both critiques the way in which human rights have been
eroded by globalization but also tries to imagine a situation where things
might be different and where human and social relations are governed by
humanistic and not capitalist values. Excerpt from French original text: “Si
nécessaire qu’elle demeure, la déclaration des Droits de l'Homme est
devenue aujourd’hui insuffisante. Nous ne pouvons plus nous satisfaire de
droits abstraits, gérés par un totalitarisme économique qui abstrait l’homme
de lui-même et le vide de sa substance vitale. Il s’agit maintenant
d'accorder la primauté à l'individu concret plutôt qu'à l'Homme en soi. Les
droits de l’être humain ne sont pas des droits acquis mais des droits à
conquérir. La Déclaration des droits de l'être humain marque un progrès de
la conscience et mise sur l’émergence.” (Raoul Vaneigem)
2. ‘HUMAN RIGHTS HEROES’ SECTION
This section will feature recent texts by what we term “human rights
heroes”, key activists and human rights defenders effecting real change in
the field of human rights and fighting actively for their advancement. For
many people, especially those whose human rights are largely
safeguarded, the concept of human rights is an abstraction. The violation of
these rights often appears to happen to others, out of sight and out of mind.
But for those engaged in the fight for human rights, the struggle often
entails serious risk. Whether they are the individuals featured here, or the
countless others fighting for the rights of humans all over the world, their
selflessness and heroism cannot be doubted. Their actions have also
undoubtedly helped to further the cause of human rights around the world.
The twentieth century has seen the emergence of a new type of hero:
fighters (without personal privilege and often in the face of enormous
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