Get Up, Stand Up for Human Rights! Art Exhibit and Performances

Get Up, Stand Up for Human Rights! Art Exhibit
January 14 – February 5, 2011

Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock
2225 Colorado Blvd (near intersection of Eagle Rock Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA 90041

Opening Reception: January 14, 2011, 6 – 9 PM with live performances starting at 7 PM

Curated by Liza Camba and Melissa Roxas

The “Get Up, Stand Up for Human Rights!” exhibition is a project initiated by community members to express ideas of what human rights mean to them and how it relates to the community at large—locally and globally.

This exhibition is the culmination of three months of skills-building workshops for participants—both artists and non-artists—accompanied by discussions about human rights issues. The result is a vivid and diverse expression, in various artistic mediums, of what human rights mean to them. The art pieces speak of violations of human rights in the Philippines to the local migrant communities struggling for a living wage and better working conditions.

The opening of the exhibit will showcase a standing visual exhibit, live performances by musicians, and special remarks by community leaders. This exhibit aims to do exactly what it is called—to get the community to stand up for human rights and to learn ways we can advocate for human rights in our local and international communities.

Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that provides innovative and multicultural arts programming to Eagle Rock and the surrounding communities of Northeast Los Angeles. Programs include exhibitions, community festivals, free and low-cost after school arts classes, Art Camps, and more. For more information on Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock and its community programs.

Sponsored by Filipino Arts and Justice Forum; Habi Arts; Sisters of GABRIELA, Awaken! (SiGAw!); Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock; City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs; Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

Book/Author Event: Migrants for Export by Robyn Rodriguez

Professor/Author Robyn Rodriguez comes to Los Angeles to discuss her newly published book, Migrants for Export. Migrant workers from the Philippines are ubiquitous to global capitalism, with nearly 10 percent of the population employed in almost two hundred countries. Rodriguez investigates how and why the Philippine government transformed itself into what she calls a labor brokerage state, which actively prepares, mobilizes, and regulates its citizens for migrant work abroad. Drawing from ethnographic research of the Philippine government’s migration bureaucracy, interviews, and archival work, Rodriguez presents a new analysis of neoliberal globalization and its consequences for nation-state formation.

Thursday, October 7, 2010, 6:30 PM
F Square Printing (also known as Fernando’s Hideaway)
519 S. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Local community organizations are hosting a discussion on the Philippines’s Labor Export Policy and the Global Forum on Migration and Development. Professor Robyn Rodriguez, author of Migrants for Export, will be participating in this event.

Coordinating groups and individuals include Sisters of GABRIELA, Awaken! (SiGAw!), Habi Arts, UCLA Asian American Studies professor Lucy Burns, AnakBayan Los Angeles, and Bayan-USA.

Friday, October 8, 2010, 12:00 PM
Robyn Rodriguez, Sociology, Rutgers University
279 Haines Hall
University of California Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

“Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Workers to the World.”

(Sponsored by the UCLA Migration Study Group*, Dept. of Asian American Studies, the Center for South East Asian Studies, and the Asian American Studies Center).

Speaker Bio

Robyn Magalit Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. She researches and teaches in the following areas: globalization and development; political sociology; international migration; race, ethnicity and nationalism; gender; ethnographic methods. She is a faculty affiliate of the Department of Women and Gender Studies and has been part of faculty-student initiatives to increase the visibility Asian American scholarship at Rutgers. She is currently working on a second book project tentatively titled, “In Lady Liberty’s Shadow: Race, Immigration and Belonging in New Jersey after 9/11.”

*Thanks to support from: the International Institute; the Division of Social Sciences; the Latin American Institute; and the Irene Flecknoe Ross Lecture Series in the Department of Sociology. The Irene Flecknoe Ross Lecture Series is made possible by a gift from Ray Ross in memory of his wife.

Questions about these events should be directed to:

Professor Lucy Burns
Assistant Professor
Department of Asian American Studies
University of California Los Angeles
Rolfe Hall 1334
lmburns@ucla.edu

Katotohanan ng Ating Bayan (The Truth of Our Nation)

Join us in a gathering of artists and community members in expressing the truths about issues facing our Filipino communities.

A collection of artwork  that tackles state-sponsored human rights violations in the Philippines will be exhibited entitled, “FACT SHEET: Activism is NOT a Crime” (courtesy of Con Cabrera and Lian Ladia of Artists’ ARREST).

Late in the afternoon until the early evening, we will launch the Habi Arts’ zine and end with poetry, spoken word, live music and performances.

This day-long event is in commemoration of International Day of the Disappeared (August 30) and will also serve as a fundraiser for the Justice for Melissa Roxas and Free the 43 human rights campaigns.

Art Beyond Barriers: Live Art Petition to Stop Human Rights Violations in the Philippines

FREE the 43 health workers! Never Again to Martial Law!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Southern California Never Again to Martial Law Convention, 3:00 PM
Live Art Petition, 5:30 PM

Fernando’s Hideaway
519 S. Spring St (between 5th St and 6th St)
Los Angeles, CA 90013

barrier – a structure that prevents or hinders movement or action

We would like to invite you to share your images, movement, rhythm, and voices to break beyond the barriers and take action to stop human rights violations in the Philippines.

In an ongoing assault on human rights by the Philippine government, 43 health workers were illegally arrested and detained on February 6, 2010 in Morong, Rizal, Philippines. They are still illegally being held at the Philippine Military Camp Capinpin and have endured three weeks of continuous ill treatment and torture in the military camp. This situation is critical. Each day that the 43 health workers are not released, it is one more day they have to endure pain, fear, and torture.

Please join us in the movement to demand freedom through art by participating in this live art petition to demand the immediate release of the 43 health workers, stop human rights violations, and to say Never Again to Martial Law in the Philippines.

The first Art Beyond Barriers live petition will be held after the convening of the “Never Again to Martial Law in the Philippines” Coalition for Southern California.

This project will tour North America. More information will be forthcoming about other cities and countries where the Art Beyond Barriers petition will tour.

About Art Beyond Barriers live art petition:

A coming together of concerned artists, communities, and human rights supporters to create a movement for change through music, voice, dance, images, and words created during the Art Beyond Barriers collaboration.

You don’t need to be an artist to participate and all ages are welcome.

Participation in the live art petition means you support the movement to stop human rights violations in the Philippines, support the call to Free the 43 health workers, and to say Never Again to Martial Law in the Philippines.

Support of this movement is in support of a global movement to uphold and defend human rights.

What to bring with you:

A passion for making art in all forms whether it be through music, song, dance, spoken word, written word, images, and collaborating with other artists and non-artists to create a movement for change.

Art materials, instruments of all kinds (you can be creative and bring found objects; anything that can make a rhythm), movement, voice, poems, and anything you would like to share with others in this experience.

This project is in collaboration with Melissa Roxas, poet, human rights activist, and survivor of abduction and torture in the Philippines; and Habi Arts, an artist collective that promotes political and artistic empowerment to inspire and mobilize people for progressive social change.

Closing Night of Papo de Asis’ Art Exhibit, Talk By Human Rights Leader, and Film Screening

Please join us in the closing night of Papo de Asis’ Art Exhibit.  The exhibit will coincide with an event to commemorate the Philippine-American War (February 4, 1899) which will include a talk by Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Chairperson of the leading human rights alliance in the Philippines, KARAPATAN; and a film screening of the short, “This Bloody Blundering Business.”

Thursday, February 11, 2010, 7:00 PM
(during Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk)

Fernando’s Hideaway
519 S Spring St (between 5th St and 6th St)
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Free event but donations are welcome!