January 24th marks the eve of the anniversary of two key social movements that reverberated around the world – the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the founding of the World Social Forum, in Brazil, in 2001. To commemorate these milestones for civil society, the nonprofit art and residency-network, Artists at Risk (AR), is hosting the #RiskandRebellion Symposium, a multidisciplinary live-streamed event that stands at the intersection of the arts and human rights.

#RiskandRebellion is a symposium about what it takes to face a world in crisis. With multiple artistic and musical segments from around the world, the symposium will feature a range of speakers that bring together politics, human rights, activism, academia, and the arts. The program will culminate with a concert by Egyptian singer, Ramy Essam, “The voice of Tahrir Square” and an AR-Alumni, from the main stage at G-Livelab in Helsinki, Finland. WTM recently reported about a new song by Ramy Essam, who has highlighted the #FreeGalal and #IwantToBreathe campaigns, higjlighting the plight of Egyptian poet Galal El-Behairy.

The #RiskandRebellion program presents key artistic figures of the Egyptian Revolution, such as Ramy Essam and street artist Ganzeer, as well as prominent figures from the World Social Forum, including Carminda Mac Lorin (co-organiser of Montreal WSF), Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Teivo Teivainen.

Among the many further contributors are academics and speakers on human rights, such as Sara Whyatt (former director of PEN International), Ole Reitov (founder of Freemuse) and key figures in the development of the WSF, Occupy Wall Street, Extinction Rebellion and other dissident movements from Belarus to India. The Grup Yorum Prize/Tenco Club will be joining and the Lazour Brothers will be pre-launching an album from NYC. Other artists include Grammo Suspect – Rainbow Ambassador Kenya (hip-hop), visual artists Saddam Jumaily and Kholod Hawash, from Basra, and dancer, Angela Aldebs, from Damascus.

Other #RiskandRebellion Symposium topics and speakers will include:

The Tunisian Revolution – with interviews by Ahmed Khanfir, Art Veda, Alaa Talbi
The Indignados/15-M– Marta Vallejo Herrando, Xavier Artigas
Occupy Wall Street – Marisa Holmes, Noah Fisher, et al.
Bolotnaya Square– Kirill Medvedev, Masha Alyokhina (Pussy Riot)
Black Resistance movements – Benjamin Abras, Nástio Mosquito, et al.
LGBTQ+ movements – Grammo Suspect – Rainbow Ambassador Kenya
Extinction Rebellion / The ZAD / Indigenous – Clare Farrell, JJordan and Isabelle Fremeaux, Benjamin Abras, Ricardo Aleixo et al.
The Indian Farmers Protest – filmmaker Qaushiq “Q” Mukherje
The Belarusian Uprisings – Masha Shakuro

Artists at Risk (AR) stands at the intersection of the arts and human rights. Likewise, the crises of our time are intersectional, entangling manifold societal and economic conflicts, ecological emergency and forced migration.

While celebrating and bringing together widely dispersed dissident movements, #RiskandRebellion is also an appeal to share Artists at Risk (AR)’s Public Call: a life-line for artist-activists around the world who find themselves at high risk of imprisonment, torture and death.

The #RiskandRebellion Symposium will also constitute the public kick-off of AR’s EU project Artists at Risk – A European Network of Safe Havens (AR-ENSH) with partners ArtVeda, Tunis; CCCB, Barcelona; Stalker, Rome; and ZKM, Karlsruhe – who will be re-streaming it through their own channels and networks.

AR-Safe Haven Helsinki is co-funded by the City of Helsinki Cultural Department. The AR-Secretariat is co-funded by Kone Foundation. This live event is co-funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. AR-ENSH is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

​Event Info:
#RiskandRebellion on AR’s website. Facebook event. ​​Telegram​ channnel for live-chat. Register at Eventbrite to join the plenary Zoom discussions.

Web:

Artists at Risk (AR) / Perpetuum Mobilε (PM)

http://www.artistsatrisk.org / http://www.perpetualmobile.org

​​Social Media Links:

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