Sanctuary: Contemporary art and human rights
Date: 9 April – 29 September 2003
Space: Gallery 1 and Gallery 4

Exhibition of work by a range of contemporary artists exploring the theme of human rights.

The exhibition was organised in order to raise awareness about the problem of refugees in the world, while the project aims to offer the new residents access to local art services. Through 28 artists, both internationally renowned and refugee artists resident in Britain, the exhibition explores issues such as forced migration, torture, displacement, human rights and the concept of ‘home.’ The works displayed are paintings, photographs, mixed media sculptures and new media. The project includes a fifteen-month programme of multi-media visual art workshops in a range of different venues.

Artists: Edward Bersudsky, Louise Bourgeois, Steve Cox, Ken Currie, David Daies, Graham Fagen, David Farrell, David Garner, Leon Golub, Dryden Goodwin, Antony Gormley, Gonkar Gyatso, Hans Haacke, Saad Hirri, Jenny Holzer, Hong Song-dam, Peter Howson, Kenny Hunter, Alfredo Jaar, Janice McNab, Vik Muniz, Shirin Neshat, Patrick O’Reilly, Julie Roberts, Mario Rossi, Graciela Sacco, David Shrigley, Ross Sinclair, Nancy Spero, Bill Viola, Kara Walker, Mark Wallinger, Zory

Quotes:
“Sanctuary is an undoubted achievement and Glasgow Museums should be congratulated for the scope of their ambition” – Moira Jeffrey, The Herald, Arts Section, 11th April 2003
“…an intelligent combination of British and international artists with work which swings from the poignant to the chilling”- Iain Gale,
Scotland in Sunday, 13th April 2003

Sanctuary was the first social justice programme that GoMA presented under the banner of ‘Contemporary art and human rights’. Ambitious in scale from the outset, Sanctuary marked a significant change in the GoMA programming and would influence work in the gallery beyond the social justice biennials.

There are some images from Sanctuary: Contemporary art and human rights over on flickr.

A summary of Sanctuary here – Sanctuary summary.

A timeline of the programme and partners involved here – Timeline

A summary of some of the comments we received here – What did you think of the project

And finally Sanctuary in statistics here – statistics