YIANNIS PAPPAS, 2025 The Performative Bible of Human Rights

YIANNIS PAPPAS, 2026
The Performative Bible of Human Rights

Edition of 100 copies.
14,85x21 A5
150 pgs

There are two kinds of rights: legal rights and "street" rights. Without the latter, without disobedience and resistance, none of the legal rights we take for granted would have come into being. This tension between codified law and lived struggle is a recurring theme in this body of work. It comprises three different durational performances, executed in Linz and Amsterdam in 2022 and in Chemnitz in 2024. Each performance explores the relationship between the body, place identity, voice, aspiration and audience in a unique manner, raising questions about how fundamental rights are produced, mediated and resisted in today's world. In these works, the body becomes both a fragile site of exposure and a vehicle of persistence, while the audience shifts between the roles of witness, co-creator, and anonymous voice.

The Performative Scripture of Human Rights is not a fixed doctrine but a living text, continually rewritten through bodies, voices, and encounters. It asserts that human rights are not merely principles enshrined in legal documents, but rather practices that must be enacted, questioned, and transformed within our shared spaces. In this sense, the performances do not end when their duration is over. They persist as fragments, echoes, and responsibilities, carried forward by participants and by future readers of these pages. Rather than offering a final statement, the performances pose an open demand: to continue rehearsing freedom, justice, and dignity in both our physical and mediated realities.