Visual graphics for human rights : an art education approach

M.Tech.This research study examines ways in which the use of graphic imagery and printmaking in visual art may help to create social awareness and responsiveness to human rights. My study examines how a critical level of social awareness at higher education level, can lead to an ability to make choices as responsible citizens in terms of redress and social justice. My research focuses on two curricular interventions for first and second year Visual Art printmaking students who are introduced to issues of human rights through projects that require both personal and public engagement. This study is grounded in the history of printmaking as a democratic medium that proposes a function for inculcating social consciousness. The contextual framework for this study includes recent countrywide political developments and human rights abuses (such as the xenophobic attacks) as well as HIV/AIDS issues, which contrast with the lack of visibility of social-awareness campaigns at a higher education institution. Issues of human rights are introduced to incoming university Visual art students as part of the curriculum. I focus my research on a specific educational programme-intervention engaging social injustices as human rights violations. I use a mixed-method approach as well as aspects of Action research as methodologies to explore the curricular interventions and analyse visual solutions as a process to create awareness about these issues. I examine the extent to which a curriculum-based visual graphics programme may be used as a means to advocate human rights and social justice. In an educational environment, the means of addressing these social injustices are that these have to be participatory, non-invasive and empowering. These values should subscribe to a system of ethical standards which promote agency among respondents initially and thereafter, in the community at large. Human rights awareness also addresses the lack of social and political acumen and criticality among visual art students. Individual change impacts on citizenship by means of inculcating a broader social awareness through individual acts of civic engagement