Smashing Times and Front Line Defenders in partnership with Amnesty International, Fighting Words, Irish Council for Civil Liberties, National Women’s Council of Ireland, Trócaire, and Poetry Ireland will implement the 2021 Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival to showcase and highlight the extraordinary work of human rights defenders in Ireland and around the world, past and present, and the role of the arts and artists in promoting human rights today. The festival will run for ten days from Friday 15 October to Sunday 24 October 2021. The artistic curator for the festival is Mary Moynihan, Artistic Director, Smashing Times and the human rights curator is Laura O’Leary, Front Line Defenders.
This year’s festival will contain both online and in-person events in line with current Covid-19 guidelines, and will facilitate the opportunity to share, celebrate, remember, explore, provoke and promote the arts for human rights. Join us as we bring together artists, activists, citizens, families, communities and all those interested in using the arts to celebrate and promote human rights and equality for all. The theme of this year’s festival is Hope, Courage and Resilience: The Story Continues. The festival celebrates human rights and links the arts to civil society, active citizenship and politics through a series of inter-disciplinary 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.