In what ways can aesthetic education help us prepare for the challenges that the human rights agenda poses?
On Tuesday, 30 April 2024, the lecture room of the University of Applied Arts Vienna transformed into an interactive stage where the intersection between Human Rights and Art was explored in a way it’s never been done before. The Vienna Master of Arts in Applied Human Rights joined forces with José Luis Falconi, a co-chair and assistant professor at the Research Program on Arts and Human Rights at the University of Connecticut, to together explore the importance of Arts in the field of Human Rights.
José L. Falconi, born in Lima, is a distinguished author, scholar and art curator specialising in Latin American art, who furthermore focuses in exploring the importance of artistic interferences for societal change, as well as the improvements of human rights. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2010 and has since held various academic, research and curatorial positions. He is also the president of Cultural Agents, a non-governmental organisation that promotes civic engagement and creativity through artistic education.
His public lecture “Slight Discomfort(s)” focused on answering an overreaching question of the importance of bridging Human Rights and Art – a connection, which is believed to be essential to ensure both the political and social change forward. He shared insights on why an education in arts is crucial not only to understand but also to appreciate the way in which the struggle for human rights presents itself ot us:
as a never-ending fight, a never-completed labour, a goal so distant on the horizon that sometimes disheartenment in its lack of progress can lead to pessimism.
Artistic education not only prepares us to anticipate this intrinsic “incompleteness” of the labour of human rights, but also helps us actually develop a taste for the sensation of the slight discomfort that arises from never completing the task fully.
The lecture revealed how artistic education can successfully equip individuals to confront these challenges of the unknown and incomplete with great resilience and understanding. We ought to live expecting surprises and learn how to appreciate something we do not understand, for that is a key aspect of democracy.
We extend our sincere gratitude to Mr. José Falconi for his enlightening presentation and for inspiring our students and Die Angewandte community to further seek means to view art through the lens of human rights and social justice.