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OUR IMPACT

AGL team in Paris

Working with AGL is like working with a friend and mentors at the same time – they guide, advise, create solutions and do regular assessments on how you are holding up regardless of their busy schedule.

Buwaso Ibrahim, poet and spoken word artist from Uganda

Supporting Artists at Risk

Our statistical overview of casework from 2018 to 2023 points to an increased clampdown on artistic voices, especially in zones of internal and geopolitical conflict and in countries where there is significant threat to or absence of robust democratic institutions.

AGL’s legal support to individual artists ensures that they are able to imagine and create freely by ensuring the right to fair trial, right to religious freedom, right to equality before the law and the right to social and economic rights. Where artists face risks to their life and personal safety, we focus on providing safe haven, often in collaboration with our network of organisations.

Life in exile can be very difficult. Last year, my team and I were struggling for more than 7 months to obtain a document from the Swedish authorities that would have allowed me to travel freely and honor my work commitments outside Sweden. It is only when my case was sent to Avant-Garde Lawyers that things started to move. I could not believe it when I received my documents in less than a month! Avant-Garde Lawyers fought hard with a system that is very little transparent so that I can now travel freely, to see family and friends and perform my music. Thank you very much to Avant-Garde Lawyers for helping me overcome a difficult time in my life and become a working artist again!

Ramy Essam, Egyptian musician and recipient of the 2019 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent

Setting precedents in the domain of artistic freedom

Graffiti on the remnants of the Berlin Wall in Seoul

AGL set an important legal precedent that extends the space for free expression to graffiti in South Korea.

In 2018, Korean artist Taeyong Jeong aka HIDEYES spray-painted symbols of peace and reconciliation on a section of the Berlin Wall, installed in Seoul’s Berlin Square. He was charged with destruction of public property and faced a prison sentence.

Representing Taeyong Jeong, AGL argued that graffiti has an expressive character contributing to the exchange of ideas and opinions, essential for a democratic society. The team argued that graffiti should enjoy the same level of protection as verbal expression. Within this framework, a criminal conviction or a custodial sentence would amount to an unjustifiable and disproportionate penalty and would be incompatible with international human rights law. In addition, viewing Jeong’s work as an isolated act of vandalism would be to strip graffiti of context and meaning and to ignore the artistic gesture altogether.

AGL on Graffiti

Most graffiti artists use their art as a vehicle for their ideas, feelings and political opinions and as a result, their art is a form of social and political commentary deserving of the protection afforded to speech. We therefore focus on the need to place street art in the larger context of freedom of expression and remind domestic and regional courts of the international obligations they are held to respect, obligations which emerge from their allegiance to democratic values and respect for freedom of expression. We also fight to recognise illegal graffiti as creative expression and argue that illegality is not a basis for denying copyright protection.

In the absence of an explanatory context, graffiti can be easily dismissed as senseless provocation. But graffiti is first and foremost a form of expression highly dependent on its context. The place where it is performed and the support it is performed on bear the same importance as the painting itself. Therefore, we emphasize the need for a proper assessment of the context-specific nature of graffiti, as well as of its ephemeral and rebellious character.

Korean artist Taeyong Jeong

The State gave me a public defender for my criminal trial but he did not understand me or my art. I was very depressed and scared I would go to prison and my life would be finished. I am Korean, but there was no one in my country that wanted to take the risk to lose their job to help me. I had no hope left when I contacted Artists-at-Risk Connection. They introduced me to Avant-Garde Lawyers and soon my life would change completely. Avant-Garde Lawyers rapidly found people who could help me in Korea so that I had a lawyer to represent me in court immediately. I first met attorney Andra Matei who was the first to check my psychological state and quickly grasp the circumstances. There is a very surprising fact about this. She is not Korean and we do not speak the same language, but she had so much faith in me and in my art and this meant everything! I started to paint again and life came back to me. Then I met Professor Park Kyungsin, attorneys Yang Hongseok, Kang Teri and Dr Oh Kyeongmi, an art expert in Korea. All of a sudden, attorneys, experts, translators, were taking interest in my case and helping me. For free!

When I read attorney Matei’s submissions I felt she expressed so well everything I wanted to say. I felt the luckiest person on earth and I cried with emotion. I cried at the trial, too. It felt as if I was in a movie.. The lawyer defended me so well.. I have no words to express my gratitude. I would be in prison right now if it wasn’t for their efforts and confidence in me and my art.

Advancing legal training

Through our unique programmatic work, we train and build capacity among lawyers, civil society professionals, artists and creators. We seek to mitigate a lack of awareness about the national and international legal mechanisms that artists could resort to for the protection of their rights, ensuring that stakeholders worldwide are equipped to defend artistic freedom.

Andra delivering a workshop at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights, 2020.

Andra is a passionate and dedicated human rights lawyer who not only is a continuous learner but also an excellent trainer, always ready to share her knowledge with others.

Her workshop Art on Trial provoked a general admiration among her colleagues. Andra remained devoted to training even after she had left the Court and returned on two occasions to run this very much appreciated workshop. There are very few specialists on this topic and even fewer are ready to teach on it.

If you are a young human rights lawyer and have the opportunity to enroll in her workshops, do not miss it.

Annie Armianova, ECtHR, Staff Development and Training Officer

Leaders in advocacy

AGL conducts targeted advocacy initiatives with governmental and public institutions as well as diplomatic missions in order to ensure the rights of artists. We regularly engage with international and regional mechanisms in order to strategically ensure protections for artists in situations of increased vulnerability.

Avant-Garde Lawyers, Artists at Risk Connection and Freemuse call for the adoption by the Human Rights Council of a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Artists. The joint statement was made during the interactive dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Karima Bennoune.