Here we provide entry questions and essential understandings for the curricular unit, “Art & Human Rights: The Disappeared in Latin America.”
Entry Questions: Human Rights
- Who are the “disappeared” people in Latin American history of the past half century?
- What might be their ages, occupations, and other general characteristics?
- Who has generally been responsible for making them disappear?
- What historical context led to such a large number of disappearances in the second half of the twentieth century — and even to this day in some places?
- What is the difference between making people disappear and simply killing them and leaving them where people will find them?
- What effect do disappearances have on the general population?
- What does this practice say about a government and a society?
- How can this practice be stopped?
“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.” — Charles Bukowski
Entry Questions: Art
- How might art forms be an appropriate way for exploring human rights issues?
- Think about the visual arts, theater arts, and more.
- Can they be affective? Can they be effective?
- What objectives do they have?
- What is the special nature of these media (photography, paintings, prints, streat art, textiles, sculpture, architectural structures, film, theater, etc.)?
- How do such art forms compare to speaking out, writing, or marching?
- How might different forms of expression be received differently?
- Is art perceived as less threatening? Or perhaps even more powerful?
- Can we see patterns that emerge in art that addresses the “disappeared”?
Essential Understandings: Human Rights
- Human rights are defined by the United Nations and are embraced by many nations of the world as worth protecting and defending without discrimination.
- The UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948 is a foundational document.
- Another momentous occasion for reaching international agreements about human rights was the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights.
- Examples of human rights: the right to life, equality before the law and freedom of expression; economic, social and cultural rights, such as the rights to work, social security and education, or collective rights, such as the rights to development and self-determination.
- UN website with basic introduction: http://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/pages/whatarehumanrights.aspx
Essential Understandings: Art
- “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
- Disappearances leave a void, a darkness.
- Disappearances involve a clandestine violence and they create terror.
- Many artists try to fill the void or bring light to darkness, to overcome fear and keep hope or memory alive.
- Many artists would like to influence existing systems so that disappearances will be replaced with due process of law.
- Many artists try to give voice to the disappeared and their families despite the risk this might involve in the face of governments that are either involved in the disappearances or are not taking action to stop the practice.
- Many artists have been known to “speak truth to power.”
- Many artists do not want to give “silence the last word.”
- Works of art can also show an artist’s frustration and rage.