ABSTRACT
Approaching human rights from this vantage leads to questions about how politics intersects with aesthetics – to an investigation of how our most cherished political concepts are so often born out of rich visual scenes. The history of human rights – and the history of their abuse – is a richly illustrated one. Thinking through the way this venerable political concept intersects with the visual realm can, perhaps, yield fresh insights – both about the concept, but also about all the human passions that bind us together and tear us apart. The British abolitionist movement is often cited as the first grassroots human rights campaign. Like the backdrop in which the United Nations' Universal Declaration was drafted, this early human rights campaign was steeped in a complex and profoundly problematic visual scene. Feminist theorists have noted the limitations human rights impose by naturalising a masculinist notion of an unencumbered and self-sufficient subject as the model rights-bearing individual.
