CHRA Fall 2025 Newsletter
The Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College is pleased to welcome back its graduate students for a new academic year and share some highlights from the Center’s activities.
MA PROGRAM
Students are already deep in their studies as they plan to present their thesis proposals in early October. This year CHRA is fortunate to have Argyro Nicolaou returning to Bard to co-teach the thesis course alongside CHRA co-founder and Senior Curator, Gideon Lester.
Students will additionally participate in diverse electives, including the History of Human Rights with Peter Rosenblum, Multi-Media Performance with Ash Tata, and Sound As A Sculpture Medium with Julianne Swartz and Matthew Sargent.
We are also continuing the Human Rights and the Arts Practicum, where second-year students engage in critical reflection on human rights issues with practical real-world activist projects. Under the co-direction of Brent Green and Oscar Gardea, half our students are teaming up with CUNY Law students to create videos in support of clemency applications for incarcerated persons in New York. Under the direction of Danielle Riou, the other half of the cohort is working with a network of immigration attorneys who are representing asylum seekers.
Last spring, CHRA graduated its third cohort of the two-year MA program. It was composed of ten students from eight countries across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Before graduation, these students presented their thesis projects in the 2025 MA Thesis Exhibition, State of Fracture. Projects included documentary film, sound installations, live performances, and written academic theses. Read about the complete set of thesis projects on our website.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
September 26, 12:00pm NYC Time / 10:00am Mexico City Time; Webinar Talk
“Sibathontisele” at 15: Zimbabwean Ethnopolitics and the Work of Owen Maseko by Zoé Samudzi
Curator and scholar Zoé Samudzi offers a reflection on the ethnopolitical and historical implications of “Sibathontisele” (2010–present), a series of paintings by Zimbabwean artist and genocide survivor Owen Maseko. The talk traces a throughline between the Gukurahundi genocide (1982–87), the subject matter of the series, and the relationship between Maseko’s repression as a Ndebele artist and the Zimbabwean state’s historical revisionism regarding the genocide.
November 14, 12:00pm NYC Time / 11:00am Mexico City Time; Webinar Talk
re/presentare: Reframing Evidence From the Commons by Sergio Beltrán-García and Elis Mendoza
re/presentare reflects on the practice of working from the commons, in its frictions and possibilities. Reframing Evidence from the Commons means acknowledging the challenging reality of true communal work in which different interests and visions of justice co-exist. The practice also questions what constitutes evidence and how, for communities outside of the juridical Western frame, reframing opens up other possibilities once it is mobilized through the mediation of investigative arts.
[include an image from one or both talks]
EVIDENCE: INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
CHRA is collaborating with Fisher Center at Bard once again on their thematic LAB festivals. Evidence, an international festival in association with CHRA is taking place at Bard College, New York (curated by Tania El Khoury and Gideon Lester), Rio de Janeiro (curated by Temporary Art Platform), Mexico City (curated by re/presentare), and Tunis (curated by Tania El Khoury & Jan Goossens at Dream City). The program in Tunis is taking place this October 2025, featuring works by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Chokri Ben Chikha, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Lara Tabet, and Public Works Studio. The Evidence festival is supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.
BOOK SERIES
CHRA has published the third volume of our Talks on Human Rights & the Arts book series, titled Common Ground: The Politics of Land and Food. This series features talks by activists, scholars, and artists from around the globe, originally presented as live events and webinars.
The three volumes, including Volume I: Through The Ruins and Volume 2: The Lawlessness of Rights are available for download and purchase on our website.
SPONSORED PUBLICATIONS
Alarm Phone Scrapbook
CHRA’s collaboration through the Activism in Process program culminated in a book by Alarm Phone activists, marking ten years of the network’s life-saving work. The publication offers intimate, multilingual, and visual reflections by the volunteers who monitor a hotline for distressed migrants crossing the Mediterranean sea.
Ecotono: revoluciones silenciosas
Through diverse voices and territories, a variety of food, agricultural, and building technologies in Colombia are explored in Ecotono: revoluciones silenciosas. Six projects are presented, bringing together a range of actions and interventions curated by former CHRA fellow Juliana Steiner as part of Common Ground: An International Festival on the Politics of Land and Food.
FACULTY & STUDENT NEWS
Argyro Nicolaou returns to CHRA as a Visiting Faculty this 2025–26 school year. She was previously a teaching and research fellow at CHRA during 2023–24. Nicolaou is a filmmaker and scholar based in Brooklyn, whose work deals with the representation of history, displacement, and intergenerational memory in post-conflict, postcolonial societies, like her home country of Cyprus.
CHRA Director Tania El Khoury and MA Program Director Ziad Abu-Rish will present their The Search for Power in its live performance and sound installation versions at Kyoto Experiment 2025 this October–November 2025.
CHRA graduate and artist-in-residence Oscar Gardea recently showed work in El Dorado de La Utopea al mito contemporanea, curated by Maria Virginia Jaua (Museo Amparo, Mexico) and Bilna’es, curated by Adam Haj Yahia (Sharja Biennial 16, UAE).
Several MA students presented research and other work at various fora around the world. Immanuel J. (‘24) published “The Black Performer Becomes Sisyphus” in Culturebot (March 5, 2025), a written reflection on J.’s approach to performance begun in their second year at CHRA, untying a formerly neat understanding of Black performance as pain mitigation and power reclamation. Lubnah (‘26) presented Tracing Temple Ties as part of Domestic Departures: (Im)mobility, Loss, and Resilience in An Uncertain World (Alserkal Arts Foundation, Dubai, 23–25 November 2024). Elie Arden (‘25) presented “Sacrifice Zones: The Rights of Mother Nature, or, Becoming Indispensable” at the 5th Conference on Latin American Political Ecology held in Mexico City 4–6 December 2024. Isabella Indolfi (‘23) co-curated the 16th Cyfest, Media Art Festival (Yerevan, Armenia), and served on the Selection Committee of the Brooklyn Arts Council, both in October 2024.
FOLLOW CHRA ON BLUESKY
CHRA is now on Bluesky. For the most up-to-date information about programming, news, and opportunities, follow CHRA on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky at the links below.
ABOUT CHRA
The Center for Human Rights & the Arts at Bard College is an artist-led center that researches and supports art and activist practices globally. It hosts an international MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts. The Center teaches, studies, and engages innovative art practices that investigate human rights violations and grassroots activism that uses creative tools of resistance.
Post Date: 09-25-2025
MA PROGRAM
Students are already deep in their studies as they plan to present their thesis proposals in early October. This year CHRA is fortunate to have Argyro Nicolaou returning to Bard to co-teach the thesis course alongside CHRA co-founder and Senior Curator, Gideon Lester.
Students will additionally participate in diverse electives, including the History of Human Rights with Peter Rosenblum, Multi-Media Performance with Ash Tata, and Sound As A Sculpture Medium with Julianne Swartz and Matthew Sargent.
We are also continuing the Human Rights and the Arts Practicum, where second-year students engage in critical reflection on human rights issues with practical real-world activist projects. Under the co-direction of Brent Green and Oscar Gardea, half our students are teaming up with CUNY Law students to create videos in support of clemency applications for incarcerated persons in New York. Under the direction of Danielle Riou, the other half of the cohort is working with a network of immigration attorneys who are representing asylum seekers.
Last spring, CHRA graduated its third cohort of the two-year MA program. It was composed of ten students from eight countries across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Before graduation, these students presented their thesis projects in the 2025 MA Thesis Exhibition, State of Fracture. Projects included documentary film, sound installations, live performances, and written academic theses. Read about the complete set of thesis projects on our website.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
September 26, 12:00pm NYC Time / 10:00am Mexico City Time; Webinar Talk
“Sibathontisele” at 15: Zimbabwean Ethnopolitics and the Work of Owen Maseko by Zoé Samudzi
Curator and scholar Zoé Samudzi offers a reflection on the ethnopolitical and historical implications of “Sibathontisele” (2010–present), a series of paintings by Zimbabwean artist and genocide survivor Owen Maseko. The talk traces a throughline between the Gukurahundi genocide (1982–87), the subject matter of the series, and the relationship between Maseko’s repression as a Ndebele artist and the Zimbabwean state’s historical revisionism regarding the genocide.
November 14, 12:00pm NYC Time / 11:00am Mexico City Time; Webinar Talk
re/presentare: Reframing Evidence From the Commons by Sergio Beltrán-García and Elis Mendoza
re/presentare reflects on the practice of working from the commons, in its frictions and possibilities. Reframing Evidence from the Commons means acknowledging the challenging reality of true communal work in which different interests and visions of justice co-exist. The practice also questions what constitutes evidence and how, for communities outside of the juridical Western frame, reframing opens up other possibilities once it is mobilized through the mediation of investigative arts.
[include an image from one or both talks]
EVIDENCE: INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
CHRA is collaborating with Fisher Center at Bard once again on their thematic LAB festivals. Evidence, an international festival in association with CHRA is taking place at Bard College, New York (curated by Tania El Khoury and Gideon Lester), Rio de Janeiro (curated by Temporary Art Platform), Mexico City (curated by re/presentare), and Tunis (curated by Tania El Khoury & Jan Goossens at Dream City). The program in Tunis is taking place this October 2025, featuring works by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Chokri Ben Chikha, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Lara Tabet, and Public Works Studio. The Evidence festival is supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.
BOOK SERIES
CHRA has published the third volume of our Talks on Human Rights & the Arts book series, titled Common Ground: The Politics of Land and Food. This series features talks by activists, scholars, and artists from around the globe, originally presented as live events and webinars.
The three volumes, including Volume I: Through The Ruins and Volume 2: The Lawlessness of Rights are available for download and purchase on our website.
SPONSORED PUBLICATIONS
Alarm Phone Scrapbook
CHRA’s collaboration through the Activism in Process program culminated in a book by Alarm Phone activists, marking ten years of the network’s life-saving work. The publication offers intimate, multilingual, and visual reflections by the volunteers who monitor a hotline for distressed migrants crossing the Mediterranean sea.
Ecotono: revoluciones silenciosas
Through diverse voices and territories, a variety of food, agricultural, and building technologies in Colombia are explored in Ecotono: revoluciones silenciosas. Six projects are presented, bringing together a range of actions and interventions curated by former CHRA fellow Juliana Steiner as part of Common Ground: An International Festival on the Politics of Land and Food.
FACULTY & STUDENT NEWS
Argyro Nicolaou returns to CHRA as a Visiting Faculty this 2025–26 school year. She was previously a teaching and research fellow at CHRA during 2023–24. Nicolaou is a filmmaker and scholar based in Brooklyn, whose work deals with the representation of history, displacement, and intergenerational memory in post-conflict, postcolonial societies, like her home country of Cyprus.
CHRA Director Tania El Khoury and MA Program Director Ziad Abu-Rish will present their The Search for Power in its live performance and sound installation versions at Kyoto Experiment 2025 this October–November 2025.
CHRA graduate and artist-in-residence Oscar Gardea recently showed work in El Dorado de La Utopea al mito contemporanea, curated by Maria Virginia Jaua (Museo Amparo, Mexico) and Bilna’es, curated by Adam Haj Yahia (Sharja Biennial 16, UAE).
Several MA students presented research and other work at various fora around the world. Immanuel J. (‘24) published “The Black Performer Becomes Sisyphus” in Culturebot (March 5, 2025), a written reflection on J.’s approach to performance begun in their second year at CHRA, untying a formerly neat understanding of Black performance as pain mitigation and power reclamation. Lubnah (‘26) presented Tracing Temple Ties as part of Domestic Departures: (Im)mobility, Loss, and Resilience in An Uncertain World (Alserkal Arts Foundation, Dubai, 23–25 November 2024). Elie Arden (‘25) presented “Sacrifice Zones: The Rights of Mother Nature, or, Becoming Indispensable” at the 5th Conference on Latin American Political Ecology held in Mexico City 4–6 December 2024. Isabella Indolfi (‘23) co-curated the 16th Cyfest, Media Art Festival (Yerevan, Armenia), and served on the Selection Committee of the Brooklyn Arts Council, both in October 2024.
FOLLOW CHRA ON BLUESKY
CHRA is now on Bluesky. For the most up-to-date information about programming, news, and opportunities, follow CHRA on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky at the links below.
ABOUT CHRA
The Center for Human Rights & the Arts at Bard College is an artist-led center that researches and supports art and activist practices globally. It hosts an international MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts. The Center teaches, studies, and engages innovative art practices that investigate human rights violations and grassroots activism that uses creative tools of resistance.
Post Date: 09-25-2025
