Minority Artists, Voice, and Dissidence

Minority Artists for Human Rights Initiative

OHCHR is currently scaling up its support for minority artist human rights defenders worldwide through the Minority Artists for Human Rights initiative (2024-2028), a global action and platform including education, integration with civil society, partnerships, awareness raising in different regions of the world, and bringing together local authorities supportive of minority artists. We invite you to help us take this initiative forward, to build a community of likeminded people, groups, communities, institutions and foundations. We welcome your support for this initiative.

#AllIn4MinorityRights

Details of the initiative are available in English | French

This is the start of the journey… and a wonderful opportunity to participate in shaping it !

Inquiries to : laura.cahier@un.org. 

International Contest for Minority Artists

Since 2022, OHCHR and its partners have organized the International Art Contest for Minority Artists. The contest aims to support minority artists committed to defending human rights around the world.  The initiative is a partnership with the civil society organisations Freemuse and Minority Rights Group International (MRG),  as well as with the City of Geneva and, in 2024, with the Centre des Arts of the International School of Geneva. Themes of the contest to date have included:

• Memory in the Present (2024)
• Intersectionality (2023) and
• Statelessness (2022)

2024: Memory in the Present

Background

The effective exercise of minority rights is intimately linked with visions and understanding of history in the present. Minority inclusion is frequently driven by public understanding of society as welcoming diversity. Minority exclusion, by contrast, often derives from an understanding of “our history” which defines minorities outside the circle of the legitimate. At the same time, minorities often carry with them the imprint of unrectified historical injustice.

The international human rights system has increasingly grappled with public memory as a condition of human rights-based justice. For example, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence has held that memorialization is a pillar of transitional justice, and necessary to address contemporary forms of exclusion and discrimination, including those facing minority communities.

In countries where minorities have been confronted with histories of human rights abuses, the recognition of past histories and the work of memorialization cut across all aspects of full reparation and reconciliation. Shedding light on past histories and advancing the process of memorialization are also key to ensuring the preservation and transmission of past memories to future generations. Furthermore, memorialization is an instrument of forward-looking social transformations that can foster dialogue, trust, inclusion, and ultimately reconciliation.

The 2024 Edition of the International Contest sheds light on the role and work of artists in the process of memorialization in different countries and contexts, and give visibility to the narratives, histories and memories expressed through arts by minority individuals and communities. More information on the 2024 contest is available in the concept note.

Winners of the 2024 awards will be announced on 26 November 2024.

2023: Intersectionality

The 2023 edition oft the International Contest celebrated minority artists working on themes relating to intersectionality and compounded forms of discrimination.

International Minority Artist Award Laureates 2023:

• Babatunde “Tribe” Akande (multidisciplinary visual artist)
• Bianca Batlle Nguema (painter)
• Mehdi Rajabian (composer and musician)

International Minority Artist Award Laureates 2023: Youth Category:

• Karthoum Dembele (photographer)

Honourable Mention:

• Aluízio de Azevedo Silva Júnior (visual artist, filmmaker and writer)
• Tufan Chakma (visual artist)
• Andrew Wong (visual artist)
• Elahe Zivardar (painter)

A full catalogue of the artists’ work is available here. The catalogue also provides information on minority artists human rights defenders, arts and human rights, intersectionality, as well as details of the 2023 Judges Panel.

Further information, including as concerns process and criteria for the awards, is available at: 
Concept note: العربية | 中文 | English | Français | русский | Español

2022: Minority Artists Working on Statelessness Themes

Versions in العربية | Français | Pусский | Español

The 2022 edition of the International Contest celebrated minority artists working on statelessness themes. 

International Minority Artist Award Laureates 2022:

• Zahra Hassan Marwan (artist and author)
• Jean Philippe Moiseau (plastic and recycling artist)
• Abdullah (photographer and videographer)

Honourable Mention:

• Brang Li (painter and visual artist) 
• Amin Taasha (painter and visual artist)
• Naser Moradi (painter) 
• Mawa Rannahr (painter)

A full catalogue of the artists work is available: HERE

The catalogue also includes biographies of the 5 members of the Judges Panel, information on minority statelessness and the right to nationality, and details of global action to end statelessness.

Further information, including as concerns process and criteria for the awards, is available at: international art contest Recognizing Minority Artists Working on Statelessness Themes.

The 2022 edition was organised jointly with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

The Minority Artists, Voice and Dissidence Series 2020-2022

The predecessor to the Minority Artists for Human Rights initiative was the Minority Artists, Voice and Dissidence series. The series brough together minority artists from diverse contexts to present artwork on the freedom of artistic expression. The series aimed to strengthen OHCHR and the UN system’s recognition of minority art and artists as powerful players in discourse and action on human rights—and to deepen engagement with them. 

The first event of the Minority Rights, Voice and Dissidence series—Human Rights, Art and Protest: Voice and Expression in U.S. Minority Communities in the Time of the Pandemic—was held in February 2021. It focused on artists from across a range of minority communities in the United States, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.  
 
The 2nd Human Rights Gallery of the Minority Rights, Voice and Dissidence series—Speaking Truth to Power: Religious or Belief Minority Artists, Voice and Protest—took place in May 2021. The focus was on religious or belief minorities worldwide, including in circumstances where artists may be threatened by anti-blasphemy or anti-apostasy laws, as well as by other forces limiting civic space.

A 3rd event— Human Rights Re-Imagined: A Virtual Art and Activism Tour  focussed on minority visual artists from a plurality of mediums, contexts and geographies, with due regard for gender and minority diversities.