Journal of Arts & Communities - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2011

This article is made up entirely of notes from Jack Klaff’s journals, kept over many decades of his life as a writer, actor, thinker and performer. The fragments have been selected because of their relevance to the overall theme, Arts and Human Rights.

Street art in Athens has boomed over the last years, transforming the fixed landscape of a city into a platform for negotiation and dialogue. As an art form, it is largely connected with the existing social conditions. A huge influx of immigrants/new citizens is transforming central areas and traditional notions of Athenian identity, giving birth to a new street-level language that has twisted, innovated and filled in the gaps of a culture’s hegemonic discourse. In this article, street art appears as a visual marker of the shifting, complex discourses of power struggles, marginality and counter-cultures that establish a new reality that must be seen and heard.

Poems written to illustrate the indignities suffered by the indigenous Mayan people of Guatemala.

A short play for two actors based on Raja Shehadeh’s 2007 book Palestinian Walks, which explores issues surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the context of a threatened natural landscape.

‘Let them see us’ is a photoessay of gay couples in Poland holding hands first exhibited in 2003 in Warsaw, Kraków, Gdansk, Sosnowiec and Wroclaw. It was later seen in other cities in Germany and Romania.

The work of Colombian artist Doris Salcedo has become an important reference when talking about art and its representation of violence and exclusion. Following a tradition stemming from the artistic movements of the twentieth century, Salcedo has been acknowledged as one of the most intriguing and original artists in her exploration of public tragedy, the delicate issue of human rights and the trace of violence in those who are left behind. Salcedo’s undertaking does not address those tangible manifestations of evil; instead, her work goes beyond the surface, inviting the spectator to a journey inside … into memories and feelings, into fears and intimate spaces. In this article, I offer a discussion regarding places, intersections and motivations in Salcedo’s oeuvre and suggest some echoes between certain philosophical foundations of her work in relation to human rights in the case of Colombia. This article addresses the invitation for this Special Issue on Arts and Human Rights, focusing on the case of Colombia, where a systematic and ongoing crisis has damaged fundamental human rights for those affected by the civil conflict. In addition, as part of my work in management and organizational studies, I consider how Doris Salcedo’s reflection is relevant to our understanding of labour and contemporary organizations.