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The International Human Rights Art Movement announces its IHRAF Festival: Hannah Arendt, highlighting the thought and power of the 20th century social philosopher Hannah Arendt, and how her work informs our understanding of today’s social and political world.
IHRAF: Arendt, funded by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts and in conjunction with the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard college, highlights her ideas through dance, theater, puppetry, music and other artistic means, 15 performances chosen out of 100 submissions.
Specifically, we looked for performance work that treated the following themes, which defined some of her most important ideas.
- Banality of Evil: evils can be perpetrated by ordinary people who are complacent.
- Refugees and Immigration: Their plight is that no law exists for them.
- Human Rights: Human rights only exist when there is a government to protect them.
- Totalitarianism: People are attracted by every promise of a man-made Paradise.
- Truth and Politics: he who tries to free the public from falsehood is in danger of their life.
- Free Will: When there is no possibility of resistance, there is the possibility of doing nothing.
- Human Nature: Human's 'nature' is only 'human' insofar as it opens up to [a person] the possibility of becoming something highly unnatural, that is, a human.
Hannah Arendt was born into a German-Jewish family, was forced to leave Germany in 1933, and lived in Paris for the next eight years. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975.
The International Human Rights Art Movement uses creative platforms (Festivals, IHRAM Press, African Secretariat etc.) to give voice to artists and issues around the world. We protect freedom of expression by highlighting those who might be suppressed or oppressed in their home countries. We bring together all members of society, from artists in-exile and at risk; to activists on the front lines of the struggle for rights and justice; to creators working in all media; to national and international politicians, government agencies, social leaders and celebrities.
