Riposte X Amnesty International UK

Riposte are part of the Amnesty Collective - a diverse group of acclaimed artists, influencers and activists who engage their communities with the various Amnesty campaigns.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Riposte curated Protection, a group exhibition in aid of Amnesty featuring women and non-binary artists that ran from 10—16 December at Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross. The aim of the exhibition was to raise awareness around the importance of the declaration, inspire debate and action within our community on issues that still need to be tackled and to raise funds for Amnesty International UK.

For the exhibition Riposte invited thirty artists including Guerrilla Girls, Esther Mahlangu, Erin Aniker, Hattie Stewart, Joy Miessi, Juno Calypso, Kelly Anna, Lotte Andersen, Lynnie Zulu, Maisie Cousins, Mona Chalabi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Phoebe Collings-James, Steph Wilson and many more to create work in response to the theme of “Protection”. All profits from art sales were donated to Amnesty International UK.

For the exhibition Riposte wanted to bring together a global collection of artists to reflect on important human rights issues that affect us all. We invited established artists and designers such as Guerrilla Girls, Nathalie du Pasquier and Esther Mahlangu alongside younger artists to explore the generational reaction to the issues covered in the declaration.

The final exhibition ran for a week at a dedicated space at Coal Drops Yard. To accompany the exhibition we created a newspaper publication printed by The Newspaper Club that featured all of the work from the show and an essay on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Throughout the week we devised a programme of events to encourage a deeper interaction and understanding of the project, this included a launch party, an artist talk around gendered anger and creativity, a dinner and creative workshops.

Protection was covered widely in the press on sites such as It’s Nice That, Dazed, Vice, Refinery 29, The Evening Standard Magazine, Design Week and Time Out.