Arts Rights Justice Academy 2017

As partner and supporter of the Arts Rights Justice (ARJ) initiative, together with the Hildesheim UNESCO Chair and it is ICORN’s hope that it can become a component in the capacity building of the network of member cities and hosted writers and artists. Elisabeth Dyvik, ICORN Programme Director, says:  

- Protecting and supporting writers and artists at risk is a much wider field than what the individual ICORN residencies offer.  Only by understanding the complexity of the issues and tasks at hand, preferably by learning from and cooperating with others, can we increase the quality and outreach of our work.  We support the Arts Rights Justice Academy and Conference with the aim that this will develop into a professional arena for capacity building, not just to benefit the individual participant from the ICORN network, but the field at large.

The programme is developed in cooperation with 30 international organisations and institutions, and is initially intended to run from 2017 until 2019. It will encompass an annual academy accompanied by an international conference in Berlin; a series of satellite workshops in the partner regions; and an open access online library.

Participants in the programme will be trained to deal with censorship and threats, use international protection and promotion mechanisms, and organize advocacy groups in order to stimulate and deepen change processes. The main topics of the ARJ Academy 2017 will be:

• Fundamentals of freedom of expression within human rights
• Understanding freedom and threat: censorship and policy structures
• Advocacy & campaigning, funding & networking
• Cultural policy & arts management
• Working with artists: needs, protection, visas, relocation
• Funding & networking: building worldwide networks in relation to freedom of expression and artistic freedom

The Arts Rights Justice pilot programme seeks to convey and professionalize skills, facilitate exchange of knowledge, build expertise on the subjects to deepen and expand structures and spaces for the promotion and protection of artistic freedom, and to strengthen civil society voices.

The Academy will be organized in a one-week training and discourse format. There is a keen desire to bring together participants from a wide variety of world regions and to create a peer-to-peer learning ambiance based on dialogue and exchange. 30 – 40 participants will join international experts and lecturers in a mixture of workshops, discussions, teamwork in groups, presentations, individual consultancy, and expert insights. All participants in the ARJ ACADEMY will be young professionals in cultural policy-related work, arts or cultural management practice, free expression, human rights work or related academic areas.

Participation in the ARJ ACADEMY enables attendees to apply to initiate regional ARJ Laboratories with the support of the ARJ programme.

The Academy takes place Thursday August 24 to Wednesday August 31, 2017 at the University of Hildesheim in Northern Germany.

The ARJ Academy will be followed by the ARJ Forum Wednesday August 31, 2017 to Friday September 1, 2017 in Berlin.