Stay up to date with the latest news, announcements, and insights from our team.
Festival Highlights
Culture is arts and imagination. In times of crisis, artists and cultural thinkers shape new languages of care, relation, and radical imagination. Their work is not only to decorate walls, but to defend lives, freedoms, and dignity.
Festival News
Four years ago, the idea of a Human Rights festival in Uganda sounded impossible. Who would the artists be? Where would we get the films? And how would we get people to gather and listen to conversations on human rights—a subject often seen as reserved for the elite in workshops and policy briefs? The dream was ambitious. There was no funding, no road map, just one conviction: the festival must happen.
Human Rights Insights
In Uganda’s ever-tightening civic space, where dissent is criminalized and visibility can be dangerous, the fight for human rights is taking on a new form—art as resistance, storytelling as survival, and community as a sanctuary.
Festival News
The Human Rights Are Universal Festival is excited to announce "DEFEND" as the theme for our 2025 edition, focusing on climate change, discrimination, democracy, and freedom of expression.
Artist Spotlights
Meet Amara Okoro, a talented visual artist whose work combines traditional techniques with contemporary themes to tell powerful stories about human rights.
Human Rights Insights
Exploring the critical relationship between climate change and human rights, and how artists are addressing this intersection in their work.
Human Rights Insights
Throughout history, art has been a powerful tool for challenging oppression, raising awareness, and inspiring action. This article explores this rich tradition and its relevance today.
Community Stories
Young artists from across Uganda are bringing fresh perspectives and innovative approaches to human rights advocacy through their creative work.
Community Stories
"We are in a world where narrative change is the key to human rights freedom, changing the narrative." The problem, however, is that "anti-rights movements have a lot of space, a lot of platforms to spread their message." This unhindered propagation of harmful narratives isn't just about state-sanctioned oppression; as powerfully stated, "the harm doesn't only come from the states. It also comes from the communities."
Human Rights Insights
For marginalized communities, art becomes an even more vital tool. Often denied platforms and silenced by dominant narratives, their stories are frequently distorted or erased. Art provides an unmediated space for self-expression, allowing these communities to reclaim their narratives, assert their identities, and share their truths on their own terms. It empowers them to become creators of meaning, rather than passive subjects of someone else's story.
