BRIAN PHILLIPS “MAKING ART FROM A HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARD”

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Brian Phillips. “Making Art from a Human Rights Standard.”

“Fundamental human rights documents have many virtues, but a poetic turn of phrase is rarely among them. Here, Brian Phillips analyses the practice of Anishinaabe artist Barry Ace to argue that through arts-based consciousness raising and collaborative creation, it is possible for human rights standards to find compelling new lives as works of art.” Art Rights Truth (ART).

Read “Making Art from a Human Rights Standard”

Brian Phillips is a human rights practitioner and educator. He is the co-founder of the Journal of Human Rights Practice (Oxford University Press), where he contributes regularly on human rights and the arts. He has worked as an independent human rights consultant since 2007. From 2003 until 2006, he was Chair of the Oxford Brookes University MA program in Humanitarian and Development Practice (UK) – where he was also Senior Lecturer in Human Rights Practice. He worked for eleven years as a campaigner and educator for Amnesty International in London (UK), where he was the Campaign Coordinator for the organization’s Europe Regional Program from 1995 – 2001. From 1993 until 1995, Brian was the Coordinator of Amnesty’s global Campaign against Disappearances and Political Killings. During 2001-2002, he was a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow (Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, UK) – teaching and writing on Quaker international work in the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. Brian was closely involved in the development of the Quaker Peace and Social Witness program in the post-Yugoslav region (1996-2007).

Also see: wāwīndamaw – promise: Indigenous Art and Colonial Treaties in Canada, Nordamerika Native Museum (NONAM), Zurich, Switzerland (April 8, 2022 to January 8, 2023).

  • Brian Phillips. “Making Art from a Human Rights Standard.”
  • For as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the river flows (2018) and waawiindmawaa – promise (to promise something to somebody) (2022). Collection of the Artist. Courtesy of NONAM.
  • waawiindmawaa – promise (to promise something to somebody) (detail 1 of 3 vessels) (2022).
  • Photo Courtesy: MEG / Nicolas Seguel-Eduardo
  • Photo Courtesy: MEG / Nicolas Seguel-Eduardo
  • waawiindmawaa – promise (to promise something to somebody) workshop participants working on medallions and reading UNDRIP Articles (NONAM, Zurich). April 22, 2022.
  • Les Cahiers du CIÉRA (April 2023).