The work of many artists and the process-based nature of many human rights projects are location and context-specific and cannot be transplanted or relocated. The Library of Performing Rights aims to provide innovative and effective ways to represent location and context specific initiatives and to resource artists and activists who wish to engage with these specific initiatives
The Library of Performing Rights intends to provide both physical and on line resources to establish platforms for activism, research and dialogue between artists, Human Rights activists, advocates, academics and, most significantly, communities who live with their rights in jeopardy. It seeks to enable the involvement of Human Rights activists and artists who are based in communities where rights are under threat, where financial resources cannot be channelled into travel or publication and where performance or Human Rights work is prohibited for economic or political reasons.
The integrity of the human body, its capacity for feeling, and the principles of human rights are central to the Library’s inception and aims. It will investigate different configurations of non-human and humanness by establishing partnerships and dialogues that cross disciplines, sites of work and agencies of intervention. The Library of Performing Rights hopes to examine how electronic communications re-figure the relationship between performance, visibility and accountability and equips people to work in/outside performance sites.
The Performing Rights Library has been developed as a knowledge exchange between research communities specialising in performance and human rights and a leading edge, community based Media Arts organisation.
The Performing Rights Library is a collaboration between Lois Weaver (QMUL), Lois Keidan (Live Art Development Agency) Gini Simpson (SPACE Media Arts) and Tom Keene (The Anthill Social) It is funded by the Live Art Development Agency and LCACE.
