Human rights reports usually draw on a traditional human rights methodology, fact finding or documentation, with a view to identifying a violation, violator and remedy. Reports represent a technical, detail-led, and legal form of speaking truth to power, usually addressing governments and authorities. They build their argument through various sections – stating the problem, mapping the context, making detailed allegations, aligning the allegations to international law – to form of a list of recommendations addressing a target state or institution. Whilst such reports remain the foundation of human rights work and offer comprehensive analysis into human rights violations, they have significant limitations as to the audiences they can reach.

  
In this call, artists and activists are invited to respond to a particular human rights report by Amnesty International titled Under Protected and Over Restricted: The State of the Right to Protest in 21 European Countries (July 2024). The report ‘reveals a continent-wide pattern of repressive laws, use of unnecessary or excessive force, arbitrary arrests and prosecutions, unwarranted or discriminatory restrictions as well as the increasing use of invasive surveillance technology, resulting in a systematic roll back of the right to protest’. The report is part of Amnesty International’s global campaign called ‘Protect the Protest’.

  
In asking artists and activists to ‘respond to’ this report, we do not mean to simply represent or reproduce the report’s content. Instead, we are asking artists to explore creative and new means of response – for example to reframe the report in a different genre, such as satire, graphic novel, or science fiction; or an innovative form, such as soundscapes, installations, performance, or textiles; or within a new meta-narrative, such as centring on care for victims rather than human rights law. Artists may wish to respond to a part of the report, a country profile, the Executive Summary and Recommendations (pp. 20-35), even a footnote; or to its tone and language; or to a particular issue, story, or case study it contains. Interventions could also interrogate issues and themes which feature in the report but were not analysed or developed in depth, or address the question of ‘what next?’ Finally, applicants may wish to celebrate the positive implications and achievements of the right to protest, or tell the human stories behind the statistics, policies and laws.

  
Applicants are expected to provide a timeline for outputs in their application, between the start date of the project and the end of September 2025\. Applicants are also expected to submit a blog, by 30th September 2025, about their project. 

A core part of the project is to commission new collaborative arts-based interventions; ‘Conversations with Reports – Amnesty International’ is one such call. It is an open call, and the maximum amount we offer for each commission is £4,000\. Applicants can use this as micro- or seed-funding that either provides initial support to get a project off the ground or subsidises an ongoing initiative. Our focus is mainly on the visual arts, although applications in other forms will be considered. We are also interested in projects that are process based / seek to document a process, produce a series of works, and are easily replicable between sites (to allow for exhibitions and interventions linked to the art in multiple places and sites).

  
As this call is part of the Arts Rights Truth research project, successful applicants will also be included in relevant academic research in a light-touch way. It is not anticipated that projects are research-based nor that participants take part in Amnesty International’s research relating to documentation and advocacy. We look forward to discussing the specifics of artists’ and activists’ involvement in the research with successful applicants. We will also support dissemination of the artwork produced, through online and physical exhibitions, social media, at conferences and workshops, etc. 

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