The Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR), through a grant from the Open Society Foundations, has set up a fund – Arctivists – to support activists and artists across the world responding to the outbreak of Covid-19 and its implications for human rights defenders, activism, and shrinking civic and political space.
Paired activists and artists are able to apply for up to £3000; it is envisaged that most grants will be for between £1000 and £2000.
CAHR recognises that collaborative endeavours between activists and artists have the potential to provide innovative responses to the current Covid-19 emergency, whether in a reactive, therapeutic or imaginative form. They seek applications from activists and artists to address one or more of the following three objectives:
- Document, monitor and analyse events in real time.
- Reflect on wellbeing, both your own and that of your communities/ organisations.
- Go beyond a reactive response to imagine new, alternative futures. This future-oriented work could assess how crisis and disruption open up new possibilities for creativity and innovation, as well as for regressive and repressive measures, and/or build on positive responses to the virus itself (local and global forms of solidarity).
Activists could write a diary, make a weekly podcast, write a blog, etc. Artists could work in their chosen media, to respond to the activist’s contribution and/or to wider developments in their country/region. CAHR are open to innovative suggestions on the nature of the collaboration between activists and artists. The timeline for funded activity is from now until 31 December 2020.
