NEWTOPIA
The State of Human Rights in Mechelen and Brussels, Belgium
1 September–10 December 2012
Opening: 31 August 2012
More than sixty years after the Declaration of Human Rights, the protection of human rights is still an urgent global issue. NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights is a major international contemporary art exhibition dedicated to human rights. It will chart the development of the human rights movement and its evolving discourse since the post-war era. NEWTOPIA will explore the numerous, complex, and multi-faceted issues pertaining to human rights. The exhibition will be divided into several thematic chapters that trace the development of human rights and their rise, particularly since the 1970s. It will negotiate the different and complex facets of human rights: from civil and political rights, social, economic and cultural rights, to the right to sustainable development, to peace, and to a healthy environment, while emphasizing the indivisible, interrelated, and interdependent nature of these rights.
NEWTOPIA will be on view in Mechelen, Belgium, from 1 September to 10 December 2012, and will feature a satellite exhibition in Brussels. NEWTOPIA will present more than 70 acclaimed and emerging artists working in diverse media. Many of them come from countries and regions where human rights have been or still are a particularly contested issue such as the Arab World, China, Latin America, and the former Soviet Republics. Half of the artists come from non-Western countries.
NEWTOPIA is curated by Katerina Gregos, who is currently on the curatorial team of Manifesta 9, and was curator of the exhibition Speech Matters for the Danish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).
NEWTOPIA coincides with the opening of the new Kazerne Dossin Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre for the Holocaust and Human Rights and is configured as a parcours in various cultural institutions in the city-centre of the historic Flemish city of Mechelen—only 20 minutes from Brussels.
NEWTOPIA also features a satellite exhibition at ING Cultural Centre in the heart of Brussels—a solo exhibition of the internationally renowned artist Alfredo Jaar (Chile).
NEWTOPIA is part of the exhibition cluster Visual Arts Flanders 2012, which comprises five international exhibitions in the region of Flanders.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are both partners of the project.
Posted from e-flux