VOICES OF COURAGE
Lively democracies granting human rights and equal treatment under the law to every individual require the participation and protection of as many people as possible. Likewise, any form of totalitarianism that violates those human rights and ignores the will and consent of individuals requires resistance.
Though in whatever country we live, the global dimension of the threats to our planet and all its lifeforms - including humanity - is so lethal that any change for the better needs the courageous re-thinking and re-acting of as many people as possible.
Activists can show the way. But what enables people to become courageous activists?
Who are the people who venture into courageous actions for moral reasons and the benefit of others - defending human rights, protecting the planet we live on - despite the consequences and sometimes even risks to their lives?
What are the driving forces, preconditions, convictions, values, and beliefs in a person who becomes a courageous activist like all of my interviewees?
My own life experiences have had a profound influence on this project. Growing up in a dictatorship, I joined the very small opposition in East Germany, which became a movement that helped to trigger the Peaceful Revolution in 1989.
Even if not all our dreams were realised, the Peaceful Revolution in Eastern Europe changed the world order. Looking back, I have been asked many times and asked myself: “What made you act?”
Hence, I searched globally for courageous activists defending human rights and engaging in finding solutions to the pressing quests of their societies and our time who would be willing to share their stories about becoming courageous.
The Social Sculpture VOICES OF COURAGE wants to honour the courage and importance of the work of these activists and, in doing so, to draw attention to the potential to act courageously for the benefit of others that exists in each one of us.
This project is alive and ongoing.
Please note kindly that these interviews often took place under challenging circumstances. In many cases, a personal meeting was impossible due to distance and Covid restrictions or because some of my interviewees had to organise the online interview under the conditions of restrictive societies or dictatorships.
Katrin Hattenhauer, artist