Rachita Taneja is a cartoonist. Mostly, she posts her spare, quirky, politically pointed drawings on her feminist webcomic Sanitary Panels and eponymous social media platforms. Funny, clever, committed to social justice, the Indian artist takes aim not only at misogynistic cultural behaviour — such as the stigmatisation of women’s menstrual cycle — but also at the Hindu nationalism that is endangering India’s Muslim citizens, dissenters and oppressed castes.
Taneja is just one of dozens of artists to use humour to expose the racism that is being institutionalised under the Bharatiya Janata party-led government of Narendra Modi. Last December, the attorney-general KK Venugopal gave his consent to a law student to bring contempt proceedings against Taneja after she made illustrations which appeared to accuse India’s Supreme Court of bias against the BJP.
The case against Taneja, which is ongoing, has shaken India’s arts community. “Writers, poets, comedians, journalists and intellectuals have all been targeted. Now they are coming for the artists,” says Sofia Karim, who runs Turbine Bagh, a movement and digital platform that showcases political artists in south Asia.
Taneja is just one of thousands of artists across the world for whom freedom of expression is no longer a given. In countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Cuba, Russia, Turkey, Hong Kong, Egypt and mainland China, a crackdown on critique has triggered a cascade of arrests, detentions and imprisonments. Some, such as Ai Weiwei, choose exile. But many fight on. In Cuba, for example, where the campaign for freedom of expression is being waged with passionate intensity, a cadre of artists and culture workers continue to protest against draconian new censorship laws despite regular arrests, harassment and physical abuse.
So grave has the global situation become that one organisation has now published a guide to help artists protect themselves. Entitled A Safety Guide for Artists, the book has been written by Gabriel Fine and Julie Trébault and published by Artists at Risk Connection (ARC). The organisation, which is an offshoot of the free expression organisation PEN America, was set up in 2018 as an information hub for artists in danger.
“Since ARC was set up in 2018, the number of artists asking for its help has risen every year. Of the 280 requests in all, over 90 occurred in 2020. That’s the highest number yet,” says Trébault when asked why ARC decided to create the guide. “But it’s just the tip of the iceberg. We know that hundreds of thousands of incidents go undocumented. Although the danger facing journalists, for example, is acknowledged, the risk to artists is constantly under-recognised so there’s no road map. The guide aims to remedy that.”
The 155-page guide is structured in six sections including Defining Risk, Preparing for Risk, Digital Safety, Documenting Threats, Finding Assistance and Recovering from Risk. Each section offers tailored advice and also provides links to who can help. For example, the section on Finding Assistance includes links to international organisations such as Front Line Defenders who offer emergency grants for legal costs.
Particularly revealing is the Preparing for Risk section, which advises artists in danger of arrest on how to set up support networks, financial security, escape plans, safe houses and professional legal assistance. The latter is particularly crucial in countries which fail to follow due process and try to restrict access to lawyers.
For artists who suddenly find themselves in trouble, this type of quick, reliable information is invaluable. “The feelings of despair and loneliness can be huge,” says Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera. Part of the 27N collective in Cuba, which is calling for the resignation of culture minister Alpidio Alonso after he struck a journalist in public, Bruguera has spent much of the past two months under house arrest. “As an activist, you feel unprotected, even paralysed, because you are in the hands of people who don’t respect justice. It’s really important to have people who know, for example, when the government is breaking the law and are prepared to challenge them.”
What’s more, she continues, if a dissident artist is supported by strong, expert advocacy, hostile regimes may treat them less brutally. “If you speak the language of those in power and show them that you know what you are talking about, they will respect you more.”
The guide stresses the importance of communicating your crisis as widely as possible. “If your mobile phone is in your hands, write everywhere you can write,” says Maria “Masha” Alyokhina. One of 13 individual artists who narrate their stories in the guide, the Russian activist and member of artists’ collective Pussy Riot spent 18 months in a Moscow jail before going into exile. She returned to Russia to take part in protests against the detention of opposition leader Alexei Navalny earlier this month, where she was arrested again and now faces potential criminal charges.
“Write on social media: ‘I’m arrested’. ‘They’re bringing me to this location’,” continues Alyokhina. “Link your social media message to all the journalists you know; your lawyer should spread the message to all the human rights organisations. So that, very fast, everyone will know what is going on with you and provide support.”
The guide should prove vital for artists in difficulty. Bruguera, who was one of the project’s originators, is delighted to see it is now available. “When I started to meet with activist artists from other countries, I realised that oppressive governments . . . respond similarly to dissidents, for example through character assassination, public defamation and leaking private data.” (This month, Bruguera experienced a flood of WhatsApp messages — both threatening and supportive — after her number was shared on Cuban national television.)
“I realised that if we could pool our resources and discover how other artists and activists had prepared for risk, we would be so much stronger. This guide contains everything I wish I’d known when I started.”
artistsatriskconnection.org/guide
"danger" - Google News
March 12, 2021 at 12:00PM
https://ift.tt/3vkfx1p
The handbook for artists in danger - Financial Times
"danger" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bVUlF0
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr
No comments:
Post a Comment