Conference : A new kind of universalism

September 19–22, 2013, The Flood of Rights, LUMA / Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College ( Human Rights Project), Arles, France

The LUMA Foundation was established in 2004 to support the activities of independent artists as well as institutions working in the fields of art and photography, publishing, documentary, and multimedia. The foundation specializes in challenging artistic projects combing a particular interest in enviroinmental issues, human rights, education, and culture in the broadest sense. The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) is an exhibition, education, and research center dedicated to the study of art and curatorial practices from the 1960s to the present day. The Human Rights Program at Bard College is a transdisciplinary major across the arts, social sciences, and literature and include the Human Rights Project which links theoretical inquiry and critical explorations of human-rights practice with active research and involvement in contemporary issues.

Responding to the drastic changes in how political transformations in the name of justice have been organized and taken place since the first “Human Snapshot Conference” in Arles in 2011, the second LUMA Foundation Conference in 2013, ” The Flood of Rights,” will ask how technologies of image-capture and the channels of communication have in recent years transformed the very terms of human rights. The conference will discuss the intersections between human rights, photography, and concepts of universalism : ” how the newly produced and disseminated universalizing pressures on morality, law, civic engagement and their institutions are themselves transfigured in the process.” The key questions are then:?”What are the technologies, languages, institutions, and interests that structure the global distribution of concepts and practices of humanism and universalism, and how do they leave their mark on these ideas themselves??”

Contributors include Amanda Beech, Rony Brauman, David Campbell, Olivia Custer, Rosalyn Deutsche, Jackson Pollock Bar, David Levine, Sohrab Mohebbi, Philippe Parreno, Katya Sander, Sharon Sliwinski, Hito Steyerl, and Bernard Stiegler.

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By Marion Wolfer

Marion Wolfer is a French Master student in cultural policy and management at the European Institute of Paris 8 University. She is working on cultural networks. She did an internship at Cutura21 for three months. Marion Wolfer est une étudiante de master I en politiques et gestion de la culture à l´Institut d´études européennes de l´Université de Paris 8. Elle travaille sur les réseaux culturels et a effectué un stage de trois mois au sein de Cultura21.