A wonderful opportunity to engage with Human Rights is taking place (October 16-25) at the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival. Human rights are essential to societal progression. With these rights every human has the opportunity to live with dignity, freedom, equality, justice and peace, which are the necessary components required for individual growth and community development.

Smashing Times and Front Line Defenders in partnership with Amnesty International, Fighting Words, ICCL, NWCI, Concern Worldwide, Trócaire and other creative partners have curated a spectacular festival which focuses on the theme Voices of Hope, Courage and Resilience celebrating human rights and linking the arts to civil society, active citizenship and politics through a series of interdisciplinary performances, film screenings, documentaries, theatre, music, dance, visual and digital  art, poetry, literature, historical memory, discussions and arts-based workshops, featuring Irish and  international artists and guest speakers celebrating and promoting dignity and respect for all people equally.

Those involve include:

Mary Moynihan
Writer, theatre and filmmaker, and Artistic Director of the Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Human Rights. Mary specialises in using the arts to promote human rights, peace, gender equality and positive mental health and well-being, and develops cutting edge, arts-based programmes with a range of organisations nationally and internationally. Smashing Times has one multiple awards for their wonderfully acclaimed projects such as Women, War and Peace and Women in an Equal Europe.

Hina Khan
Hina is a visual artist originally from Pakistan but has lived in Ireland since 2015. Khan’s work blends a mixture of traditional and innovative techniques in Miniatures. She portrays social issues, such as immigration, humanitarian crises, gender discrimination, gender restrictions, and trauma in her work. Most of her work is a contrast between traditional and contemporary miniature. Hina’s work constantly searches for the best way to interpret ideas and express her own ideologies through symbolism, which evoke emotions that have been drawn from her experiences of life. She has also been awarded several residencies with Fire Station Arts Centre, Create Ireland, West Cork Arts Centre, and Cow House Studio.

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