Diversity of cultural expressions

UNESCO's definition of artistic freedom is very broad - which is a great advantage as it allows us to move away from the narrow, or often contradictory, discussions on "artistic freedom". Artistic freedom derives from the provisions of international law, including the right to support, disseminate and remunerate artistic work or the right to freedom of movement.

In the understanding of the UNESCO Convention, artistic freedom can only be guaranteed if production, distribution and participation are freely possible - this also includes the social and economic protection of art and cultural actors.

"Artistic freedom is the freedom to conceive, create and disseminate diverse cultural expressions without censorship by governments, political interference or pressure from non-state actors. It includes the right of access of all people to these works and is essential for the well-being of societies." - Arts Rights Justice Austria / UNESCO

Monitoring

Racist attacks, blocking on social media, or making it difficult to obtain a residence permit are threats to artistic freedom. Documenting restrictions helps to keep these spaces open, anti-discriminatory and inclusive. As part of the open networking platform "Arts Rights Justice Austria", a monitoring system was developed in 2019 to enable the systematic documentation of violations and restrictions of artistic freedom in or by Austria.

For the Arts Rights Justice Austria network it is clear that more visibility of and also action against violations of artistic freedom as well as support for those directly affected requires a large network.

Monitoring for what?

• Monitoring is a process of observing, recording, measuring & logging, or documenting what is happening.
• Monitoring a situation, measuring a change in a state or set of states or a lack thereof.
• Monitoring can help to observe a phenomenon, communicate change, but also report progress. Understand problems, clarify what we want to change. Questioning assumptions, learning, getting better but also being accountable.
• Case documentation, recognising trends and patterns, internal learning & awareness raising.

It is the documentation of cases that are reported or brought to the attention of the documenting actors, both from media coverage and from the personal experiences of those directly affected. The documents are available for download. 
It is open to all interested parties to join the documentation of such cases.