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, and faculty and staff art productions.
MA PROGRAM
This semester we look forward to two student exhibitions. The Open Studios (April 17) is an opportunity to view first-year MA students’ works in progress made during their core class in art making co-taught by Robin Frohardt and Oscar Gardea.
Our two-year MA in Human Rights and the Arts culminates in a thesis exhibition featuring interactive performances, installations, and written theses completed during their thesis class with Tania El Khoury and Gardea. The exhibition will open on April 25 with a reception and run through May 4.
Across the Annandale campus, our students are enrolled in elective classes offered this spring such as Sound as a Sculpture Medium (Julianne Swartz & Matthew Sargent), Indigenous Cinema (Zach Khalil), Imagined and Unimagined: History, Community, Identity (Lara Fresko Madra), Solidarity as Worldmaking (Dina Ramadan), Architecture as Witness (Farah Alkhoury), Memory and the Guilt Environment (Valentina Rozas-Krause) and Race and Real Estate (Peter L’Official).
March 7, 12:00pm; Webinar Talk, “The Scene of Crime” by Amar Kanwar.
March 10, 6:00pm; Book Launch at Barringer House, Ecotone: Silent Revolutions by Juliana Steiner.
March 26, 6:00pm; Talk at Resnick Studio, Fisher Center, “Comedy for Organizers: Cliff Notes from a Jewish Anti-Zionist” by Morgan Bassichis. Co-sponsored with Theater & Performance and Studio Arts programs.
April 8, 6:00pm; Talk at Weis Cinema, “Expert Witness, Geomancer Mystic” by Sean Connelly.
April 17, 3:00-6:00pm; Open Studios at Massena Campus. Works by first-year students in the MA in Human Rights & the Arts.
April 25 – May 4; MA Thesis Exhibition, across Bard Campus. Human Rights & the Arts class of 2025.
FACULTY & STUDENT NEWS
The Search for Power is an interactive sound installation and a live lecture performance featuring CHRA Directors Tania El Khoury and Ziad Abu-Rish, presented by Fisher Center LAB and CCS Bard at the Hessel Museum this February. Tickets to the performance are sold out, but you can still experience the open installation February 1-23, no reservation required.
Masterclass is coming to the Fisher Center April 3-6. Blending the comic discourse of writer and performance-maker Adrienne Truscott (MA Program Coordinator and creator of Wild Bore and Asking For It) with the dramaturgy of the internationally renowned theatre company Brokentalkers (The Examination, Have I No Mouth, The Blue Boy), the award-winning Masterclass is a parody uncovering excruciating truths about privilege, gender, and power in the arts. Tickets here.
Mona Benyamin (HRA ‘26) is part of a multimedia group exhibition, Screen Memories, curated by May Makki at the Abrons Art Center and Cuchifritos Gallery February 14-April 14. Rethinking Place will host Food & Memory for their spring conference and include a panel with Tara Rodriguez Besosa (HRA ‘26) on Saturday, March 8.
ACTIVISM IN PROCESS
Last fall, Alarm Phone launched a scrapbook compiling artwork, essays, and journal entries created by its international network of volunteers to commemorate ten years of AP’s lifesaving work. You can read and download the book on our website.
In March, Commoning (Masha’eyyih) will lead a workshop with Syrian migrants in Lebanon entitled “Resources and Priorities in Co-learning for Liberation.”
TALKS ON HUMAN RIGHTS & THE ARTS Book Series
CHRA is currently working on its third volume of our Talks on Human Rights & the Arts book series, titled Common Ground: The Politics of Land and Food. This series publishes talks by activists, scholars, and artists from around the globe, originally presented as live events and webinars.
The first two volumes, Through The Ruins and Lawlessness of Rights are available for download and shipment on our website. If you are local, send an email to [email protected] to pick up your copies from our office at a discounted price.
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.
Image Credits:
Graphic Design by Haitham Haddad
Image provided by Commoning
The Search for Power, photo by Pekka Mäkinen
Alarm Phone Scrapbook: A Behind The Scenes Look Into 10 Years of Alarm Phone
Tick Drag, photo by Grace Crummett
Masterclass, photo by Ste Murray
Ecotone image provided by Juliana Steiner
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Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College
30 Campus Rd, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY 12504