As of December 2024, Generation 12 had conceptualized, carried out, and started the final stages of their human rights projects. These projects have ranged from exhibitions, informative videos, and interactive conferences to community workshops, among others. The students have all practiced working interdisciplinarily on human rights under the guidance of the Vienna Masters partners. This has created a space for all parties to learn, support each other, and create a practical project for the public.
The second installment of Art and Human Rights follows the program’s partners and how they have worked with the students during their human rights projects. The projects began with the World Café, where the students had the opportunity to meet, pitch, and exchange ideas with all the invited program partners. The connections made during the World Café were the kick-off for the inspiring projects that Generation 12 has been working on since April 2024. To gain insight into how the projects developed, I interviewed three of our partners.WestLicht, UNHCR, and HEMAYAT are three of the partners who were interviewed about the projects they worked on.
WestLicht
The White Canvas by current student Nassirou Holik and alum Samira Saidi was an exhibition held at WestLicht from September 13 to November 10, 2024. I had the opportunity to meet Nike Bekemeier, assistant curator at WestLicht, who worked with chief curator Fabian Knierim on Nassirou’s project. This was the first year that WestLicht participated in the World Café and collaborated on a student’s human rights project.
I met Nike in her class’s project room at die Angewandte, where she is pursuing her master’s degree in Art and Cultural Studies. She says that her academic background is theory-heavy, but she is also an artist working with photography. During our conversation, renovations were underway at WestLicht, and she was on leave for her studies. Nike informs me that The White Canvas is WestLicht’s third exhibition of four during their operational year. It ran parallel to this year’s World Press Photo exhibition held in the gallery.
She tells me that they came without expectations and were eager to exchange ideas with the students during the World Café. They wanted to meet the students to learn what topics they were interested in. Bekemeier and Knierim’s participation stemmed from a general curiosity and the alignment of WestLicht’s vision to present human rights topics that the master’s program advocates for.
The collaboration allowed WestLicht to engage directly with these topics, provided the students with hands-on experience, and facilitated a mutual development of knowledge. They supported Nassirou in bringing the exhibition from the realm of ideas to a physical space. For WestLicht, it offered a perspective on the lives of Black people living in predominantly white spaces through their work with our changemakers, Nassirou and Samira.
UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR
Similarly, S. Hofbauer, Senior Liaison Associate at the UNHCR Liaison Office to the OSCE and Vienna-based UN Agencies, found immense value in student engagement and exchange through the project collaborations. The documentary about the queer migrant and refugee experience, Unbound, made by Carla Guariglia, is supported by UNHCR. S. Hofbauer has assisted in finding financial support and identifying human rights film festivals to which Carla’s documentary can be submitted. The students have received guidance from UNHCR while working independently, once again creating a learning environment for both parties.
S. Hofbauer sees the collaborations as mutually beneficial for UNHCR and the students. UNHCR can work with young minds, and in turn, it becomes connected to the great projects the students create. She emphasizes that the students do the heavy lifting, while UNHCR is there to support and provide guidance to their projects as much as needed. The Offices assists on questions regarding content, it provides various resources, such as contacts, financial support, opportunities to showcase the project results, and a sounding board for the students.
UNHCR has been a program partner since before there was an intersection with the arts. The UN agency has been part of the curricular development, UNCHR staff have taught various courses, and UNHCR has been welcomed to be mentor for all generations of the program. For S. Hofbauer, it is an honor to work with the diverse student groups the master’s program brings together. There have been four World Cafés, and this is UNHCR’s fourth time taking part.
Read more about the UNHCRs collaborations with the Vienna Master here.
HEMAYAT
In addition to the prominence of mutualism in the human rights project collaborations, Nora Ramirez Castillo appreciates the enthusiasm and energy the students bring to the organizations. Nora worked on Know Your Minds, Take Care of Your Rights by our changemakers Philomina Belec, Emma Wagoner, and Mariana Pires Soares. I sat down for an interview with Nora, the deputy manager at HEMAYAT, in her office between operational work and sessions.
HEMAYAT provides support for clients from 50 countries around the world who have survived war and torture. I sat down Ramirez from HEMAYAT, it was also her first time attending the World Café, despite being a partner of the master’s program since 2015. Ramirez explains that this was due to concerns about the confidentiality of their patients in relation to the kind of projects the students wanted to pursue. This year, she decided to attend the World Café without any preconceived notions of project outcomes.
This visit became the inception of our students’ informational video for asylum seekers, which is meant to help in the beginning of their asylum process in Austria. Like our other partners, she tells me that the students realized the work through some concept development, advice, and Ramirez’s contacts. For Ramirez, she found the human rights projects to be an opportunity for students to do real work, follow a project from start to finish, and bring inspiring energy by being their brilliant, knowledgeable selves to all collaborating organizations.
Bekemeier, Bauer, Ramirez and Me
Bekemeier, Bauer, and Ramirez all agreed that the arts and human rights field is a transformative space. Bekemeier said that the exhibition The White Canvas started a reflection process within WestLicht, being a predominantly white institution. Art and human rights bring difficult subjects to the surface. The normalization of interdisciplinary fields challenges our perceptions, which helps us grow as fellow human beings.
Bauer sees the great power art holds in translating human rights topics in a digestible way for people outside of human rights fields. When looking back at a UNHCR simulation game that simulates the experience of refugees crossing a border, she recalls feedback they received. More than a year later, participants who tried the VR game during a training session still remembered what they felt while being in the simulation.
Furthermore, Nora Ramirez, who is also a psychologist and psychotherapist, shared that she visited Peru, where she saw a theatre piece about political violence that then shaped and informed her master’s thesis. Art can draw attention to human rights matters, she says. When we view human rights through an artistic lens, new sensitivities can awaken in us.
In short, I learned that art is a great communicator; it moves and teaches us. Art and human rights, further, along with interdisciplinary practices, bring together different mindsets. Bekemeier, Bauer, Ramirez, and I could all agree that when these perspectives intersect, a playground for new solutions is created. They all see the Vienna Master as a space where different minds and skill sets, both within the working team and among the students, come together.
This, in turn, creates allyships, encourages skill-sharing, builds bridges in perspective gaps, and challenges preconceptions. This program pushes students to grow academically and sharpens their practical skills. All of this is to say that our master’s program aims to prepare students to become human rights practitioners who are ready for anything the world might throw at them in the professional field.