Exploring the Intersection Between Arts and Human Rights: Galway Summer School

One of the strengths of the human rights framework is its embrace of content beyond law, including the arts and humanities.  This aspect of human rights will be explored more deeply this summer at “Belonging,” the Galway International Summer School on the Arts and Human Rights, July 9-11, 2015.

Here’s how the organizers describe this unique event:

“Thought leaders from the seemingly disparate worlds of human rights and the arts will come together for the Galway International Summer School on the Arts and Human Rights from 9-11 July. This landmark event, a world-first, is hosted by NUI Galway’s Irish Centre for Human Rights, and will take place in the days immediately before the Galway International Arts Festival.

Bringing together arts and human rights practitioners and others interested in the topics, events will take the form of panel discussions, exhibitions and performances. There will also be three parallel workshops on the topics of literature and human rights, the visual arts and human rights, and music and human rights.

The Summer School is co-directed by Professor Michael O’Flaherty, Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights and Dr Dominique Bouchard, Curator at the Hunt Museum. The organisers envisage that the event will provide a platform for sharing ideas and identifying synergies between the two disciplines of art and human rights, both of which are strongly aligned with issues such as social justice, cultural expression and cultural freedom. The summer school, which is currently open for enrolment, will follow the theme of ‘Belonging’ as seen from an arts and a human rights perspective.

The opening speaker will be United Nations’ leading expert on human rights and culture, Farida Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights.”

Registration information for the Summer School is here.