The spring newsletter is out now. To subscribe to semesterly updates, sign up on our main page. The Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College welcomes back its students and wider community to a new term of public programming from around the world, new publications, student creations,
Masterclass is coming to the Fisher Center April 3-6. ★★★★ “Scoring pertinent points about the abusiveness inherent in the genius cult” —The Guardian “Damn me, it’s hilarious.” —The Sunday Independent Blending together the comic discourse of Adrienne Truscott (MA Coordinator, 2024 Spiegeltent emcee, Wild Bore, Asking For It) with the
“The Search for Power” is an interactive sound installation and a live lecture performance featuring CHRA Program Directors Tania El Khoury and Ziad Abu-Rish, presented by Fisher Center LAB and CCS Bard at the Hessel Museum this February. On a night with a sudden electricity outage in their Beirut neighborhood,
Isabella Indolfi (HRA ‘23) will lead an online seminar, “Leave the Community Alone: Critical Perspectives on Community Art” through The School of Making Thinking. Participants will examine the merits and pitfalls of art projects that activate a critical exchange between local communities and artists, learning to identify the problematic power
CHRA’s director Tania El Khoury curated a program at Abrons Art Center, NYC, taking place Thursday, November 21 at 6 pm. The program is part of Kinstillatory Mappings in Light and Dark Matter series, hosted by Kai Recollet and our Talk Series contributor Emily Johnson, and is the last Kinstillatory
The OSUN Center for Human Rights & the Arts at Bard College is now accepting applications for its MA in Human Rights and the Arts program. The MA Program in Human Rights & the Arts offers a two-year graduate-level interdisciplinary curricular experience that takes stock of the growing encounter between
The fall newsletter is out now. To subscribe to semesterly updates, sign up on our main page. The Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College enters its fifth year with a new international cohort of MA students, a multidisciplinary public program, two book launches, and ongoing collaborations
CHRA is delighted to announce Talks on Human Rights & the Arts 2: The Lawlessness of Rights is now available online and through Printed Matter, Inc. The book is the second volume of talks by activists, scholars, and artists from around the globe, presented at the Center for Human Rights
The Center for Human Rights and the Arts is pleased to announce its Fall Public Program. The new line-up includes Films-Screening and an in-person Talk by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, co-organized with The Human Rights Project; an Online-Panel with Tareq Baconi, Aslı Ü. Bâli, and Shay Hazkani; a Webinar Talk by
Inspiring collaborations: March 31st is International Transgender Day of Visibility. This year in Washington DC, artist Cassils presented “Etched in Light.” Performers and participants in ETCHED IN LIGHT BY CASSILS, National Mall, Washington D.C., Trans Day of Visibility, March 31, 2024. Performance still. Photo by Ashley J. Mitchell. Etched
In April, the Center for Human Rights and the Arts presented works developed by students in the MA Program for Human Rights and the Arts. The thesis exhibition included art installations, performances, and a reading room, and reflects the culmination of students’ research and artistic practices from their time at
CHRA director Tania El Khoury’s artwork is the subject of a newly-published edited volume. Tania El Khoury’s Live Art: Collaborative Knowledge Production (Amherst College Press) is co-edited by Laurel V. McLaughlin and Carrie Robbins, and examines El Khoury’s live art practice. The edited volume features several analyses of El Khoury’s
The spring newsletter is out now. To subscribe to semesterly updates, sign up on our main page. We begin 2024 with the recognition that we live in a world of great injustice and we remain in awe of those that persevere and struggle in order to exist and challenge the
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts is pleased to announce its Spring Public Program. The new line-up includes an in-person panel co-hosted with Forge Project, and in-person and online talks by Robin Frohardt, Molemo Moiloa, and Argyro Nicolaou; open studios by the first-year M.A. students, and thesis
Artist and CHRA director Tania El Khoury presented Cultural Exchange Rate at The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn from January 11-24. This showing was part of Under the Radar festival. Cultural Exchange Rate is an interactive live art project in which the artist shares her family memoirs of life
CHRA’s Adrienne Truscott is showing and performing in MASTERCLASS at the Sydney Opera House January 12–16, 2024. A collaboration between her and Dublin theatre-makers Brokentalkers, MASTERCLASS is critically acclaimed, with The Guardian describing it as “scoring pertinent points about the abusiveness inherent in the genius cult”, and The List calling it “a stunning dissection of patriarchy, privilege and performance in a forceful work about
On January 12–14, 2024, CHRA and the Luma Foundation will host a multidisciplinary array of practitioners, including lawyers, artists, curators, and academics, at Luma Westbau in Zurich, Switzerland to discuss the evolution of the evidentiary status of drawing by children. The conference takes its cue from the 2007 ruling by the International
The OSUN Center for Human Rights & the Arts invites applications for a one-year research and teaching fellowship in human rights and the arts. Scholars, artists, and activists with teaching experience and a research project are eligible to apply. The fellowship covers a period of one year, i.e. two academic
Congratulations to CHRA Fellow Argyro Nicolaou who recently presented her feature film in development, Excavators, at connecting cottbus, a German co-production platform. The project won two significant awards – Audience Award for Best Pitch and the Avanpost Pitch Packaging Award – which will help it move towards production. Excavators is a contemporary story exploring
The OSUN Center for Human Rights & the Arts is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for our third cohort for the MA in Human Rights and the Arts program, with a starting term of Fall 2024. The MA Program in Human Rights & the Arts offers
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College (CHRA) is pleased to announce its Fall 2023 public programming. The new lineup, listed below, includes online and in-person talks by artists and activists from around the globe: Guadalupe Maravilla, New Red Order (co-hosted with Studio Arts at
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Bard College $2,000,000 to support the research, artistic production, and curatorial practice of Tania El Khoury. The funding will allow the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard (CHRA), the Fisher Center at Bard, and El Khoury to implement a
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College (CHRA) announces the appointment of filmmaker and scholar Argyro Nicolaou and curator Juliana Steiner as its 2023–24 resident research and teaching fellows. This year’s applicant pool was competitive and diverse, featuring over ninety six candidates from sixteen countries,
A new article in Al-Monitor looks at MA graduate Adam HajYahia’s recent thesis project, Carnal Politics: Sex, Desire, and Anti-Colonial Deviance in Mandate Palestine. The work aims to re-imagine new possibilities for Palestine’s future by linking today’s struggle to a long history of “deviance”, liberation, and resistance. During the thesis
CHRA is delighted to share its first publication, Through the Ruins: Talks on Human Rights & the Arts 1. This is the inaugural volume of an annual series, created as an educational resource for all. The book is based on talks presented at CHRA by choreographer Faustin Linyekula, art critic duo
Recommended in the Art Newspaper’s Book Club, Through the Ruins: Talks on Human Rights and the Arts 1, brings together activists, scholars, and artists working at the intersection of human rights and the arts. Through the Ruins is based on the first year of public talks at CHRA by Ashmina Ranjit,
CHRA is delighted to share its first publication, Through the Ruins: Talks on Human Rights & the Arts 1. This is the inaugural volume of an annual series, created as an educational resource for all. The book is based on talks presented at CHRA by choreographer Faustin Linyekula, art critic
Artist and CHRA Director Tania El Khoury was recently announced as one of ten recipients of the 2023 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. The annual award recognizes risk-taking mid-career artists in each of the fields of dance, music, film/video, theater, and visual arts. The award includes an unrestricted prize of
This April 27 through May 7, the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College (CHRA) presents ten capstone projects of its inaugural class of the MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts. Each of these projects is based on original research by a graduating student,
CHRA graduate student Adam HajYahia is curating Footnotes on the Fictive Present, a public program series at The James Gallery and The Graduate Center, City University of New York from March 21 through June 4, 2023. The series explores political imagination of the past and speculations of an emancipatory future
Artist and CHRA Director Tania El Khoury has been awarded Special Mention for the 2023 Sharjah Biennial Jury Prize, presenting two interactive installations at the Sharjah Biennial 15: Cultural Exchange Rate and The Search for Power. Both shows opened with the biennale on February 7, and her award was announces that evening at the
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College (CHRA) is pleased to announce its Spring 2023 public programming. The new lineup, listed below, includes online talks, in-person film screenings and discussions, and workshops with artists, activists, and OSUN colleagues and their local communities. This semester also
Artist and CHRA Director Tania El Khoury participated in the Spring 2023 lineup of the University of Michigan Stamps School of Arts Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series. The event, on Thursday, January 26, at 5:30pm at the historical Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, took the form of an interview conducted
Over the 2022–23 winter break, CHRA organized a field trip for MA students to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts (Mass MoCA), situated on the ancestral homelands of the Muhheaconneok or Mohican people (People of the Waters That Are Never Still) and the Wabanaki peoples. Particular exhibits that students remarked on were those by EJ
On view at the Clemente Center, Dear Alien, Dear Doppelganger features artists Jaguar Mary X, Taro Masushio, Luna Luis Ortiz, and Lisa Ross. The exhibition presents photographs and videos that explore queerness as performances of doubling. The four featured artists approach archives, representations of popular culture, family photos, and dominant
Tender Edges is a microfestival of live art projects created by the first year M.A. students in Human Rights & the Arts at Bard College (Class of 2024). These works-in-progress are part of The Politics of Interactive Live Art course taught by Tania El Khoury. The microfestival takes place at
Artist, community organizer, educator, and CHRA’s Programming Producer Polina Malikin presented work as part of a collaborative project called PRACTICAL ARTS at the Scope Art Fair in Miami Beach (November 29 – December 4, 2022). For this twenty-first edition, Scope Miami Beach brought together over 150 diverse contemporary exhibitors as
The OSUN Center for Human Rights & the Arts (CHRA) invites applications for two resident research and teaching fellowships in human rights and the arts. Scholars and/or artists with teaching experience and a research project are eligible to apply. The 2023–2024 fellowships cover a period of one year, i.e. two
In Fall 2022, our first-year M.A. students took a field trip to NYC to visit exhibitions and meet with curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) and MoMA PS1. The trip was part of the first-year students’ core course requirement (HRA 501: The Politics of Interactive Live Art),
The OSUN Center for Human Rights & the Arts is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for our third cohort for the MA in Human Rights and the Arts program, with a starting term of Fall 2023. The MA Program in Human Rights & the Arts offers
The Fisher Center LAB Biennial is a thematic festival that invites and commissions artists to create new works that grapple with some of the most pressing questions of our time. The 2022–23 edition, Common Ground, is a year-long international program focusing on the politics of land and food and taking place
CHRA Director Tania El Khoury recently co-curated (with Bochra Triki) Tashweesh 2022: a festival on feminist practices in Southwest Asia, North Africa, and Europe. The program took place across the three cities of Tunis, Brussels, and Vienna (September 23 through October 15, 2022) and was hosted by L’Art Rue, beursschouwburg, and
This October, as part of their Politics of Interactive Art (HRA 501) course with Tania El Khoury, first-year M.A. students participated in a special workshop at Eureka!, an arts center based in Kingston, NY. Eureka! hosts an artist residency program as well as a variety of events and workshops, all
The Margarita Kuchma Project Award selection committee has named two final winning projects: “The Columbia Project” and “Project MA3: Masanse Na Mayouthman (From Violence to Co-existence).” “The Columbia Project” is a multimedia arts mentorship collective where incarcerated artists are given the opportunity to define their own voices. The project is
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard is pleased to announce its Fall 2022 lineup of webinar talks, in-person panels and a film screening. Tuesday, September 6, 5:30pm ET In-person panel: Out of Place: Three Writers on Fiction, Language, Exile, and Utopia Nuruddin Farah, Ilija Trojanow,
CHRA’s Adrienne Truscott recently showed and performed in MASTERCLASS, a collaboration between her and Dublin theatre-makers Brokentalkers, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The work received a Fringe First award which recognizes outstanding new writing premiered at the festival. Established in 1973, the Fringe Firsts are recognized all over the world
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College (CHRA) announces the appointment of Sabine El Chamaa and Lara Fresko Madra as its 2022–23 resident research and teaching fellows. This year’s applicant pool was competitive and diverse, featuring over fifty candidates from sixteen countries, demonstrating the richness
In Spring 2022, our first cohort of MA students traveled to the Fusebox International Performing Arts Festival in Austin, Texas. The trip was part of the student’s first-year core course requirement (HRA 504: Collaborations & Community), taught by CHRA Director, core faculty, and artist Tania El Khoury. Over the span
In loving memory of our MA student Margarita Kuchma, who was a Smolny College graduate, a PIE student at Bard, and part of CHRA’s inaugural cohort in the OSUN M.A. in Human Rights and the Arts, the inaugural Margarita Kuchma Project Award was announced by the Human Rights Project at
Read our latest newsletter here.(Copied below). To sign up to our newsletters, please add your register here. TALKS Our public program began with choreographer Bhenji Ra reflecting on her body-centered practice to approach community, prison abolition, permaculture, and radical trans love. Omar Al-Ghazzi (London School of Economics) moderated the event.
This January 2022 CHRA completed selections for our 2021–22 Faculty Research Grants and Student-led Initiative Grants competitions, two of our annual grant competitions. We are pleased to announce that CHRA has awarded a total of twenty-three grants to faculty and students across nineteen OSUN institutions in these two most recent
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard is pleased to announce its Spring 2022 lineup of in-person and webinar talks, digital commissions launches, film series, and a virtual activists panel. Friday, February 11, 4pm EST Webinar talk: Everything at Once: Permaculture, abolition, and trans love Bhenji
As our Center begins to accept applications for our second cohort for the M.A. in Human Rights and the Arts program (Deadline: 10 January 2022), we will be holding several virtual info sessions throughout the month of November 2021. This announcement will be regularly updated to reflect news sessions. The
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard is pleased to announce its Fall 2021 lineup of talks series and digital commissions launch events. This term, four artists and activists from around the globe share their practice reflecting on human rights and the arts intersect in their
We are pleased to announce that all four of our first season of CHRA Digital Commissions are now available for online viewing. This Spring 2021 series included four artists from around the world [Leil Zahra Mortada, Marikiscrycrycry (Malik Nashad Sharpe), Emilio Rojas, and Sethembile Msezane] using a variety of media
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and Arts at Bard College is pleased to announce that Nadine Fattaleh and Oscar Humberto Pedraza Vargas have been selected as the inaugural (2021-22) recipients of the Center’s fellowship in human rights and the arts. The fellowship aims to support outstanding engagement in human
The online arts publication Hyperallergic recently featured CHRA core team members Tania El Khoury and Ziad Abu-Rish. In conversation with Katie Kheriji-Watts, they discuss their relocation from Beirut to Bard College and how their previous art and research projects inform CHRA’s overall vision, including its flagship MA in Human Rights
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts announces today the launch of a pioneering M.A. program in Human Rights and the Arts, and looks forward to welcoming its inaugural class in Fall 2021. Designed by the Center’s core faculty team of Tania El Khoury, Thomas Keenan, Gideon Lester,
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts is pleased to announce its inaugural (Spring 2021) lineup for its annual lecture series in human rights and the arts. This year, eight artists and activists from around the globe will reflect on their practice to provide grounded, wide-ranging, and in-depth
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College is pleased to announce the inaugural (2020–21) recipients of grants supporting faculty research and student-led initiatives at the intersection of human rights and the arts. The grants were awarded after an open call for proposals for faculty and