Young people’s right to freedom of expression is a complex matter on many levels. Firstly, very few young people are educated about their human rights. Secondly, geopolitical context often dictates the level of risk involved in speaking out and up about injustice. Thirdly, various adult stakeholders are involved in ensuring or oppressing young people’s right to express themselves; parents and guardians, school management and teachers, government officials and legislators, and the list could go on. When I began working on the vision for Seen and Heard, I knew that I needed a team able to work cross-sectorally, with extensive experience in the areas of academia, activism, education, literature, filmmaking, and contemporary art. It also had to be a team willing to embrace working both in institutions, as well as in the field. The goal of the project is highly ambitious – to prototype the full life-cycle of a youth freedom of expression social movement [in an age of fake news, the rise of the far right, and ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza]. 

Two years later, at the first transnational meeting of the Seen and Heard team, in Berlin, I am struck by the implications of what we have taken on. I’ve watched artist portfolios on the hardship of coming out as queer in a community that does not accept you, on violence against women, corruption that leads to death, what it means to make art as a living, how posters can be cathartic, how art can be a form of protest in both conceptual and embodied ways. I was invited to think of artography as a method but also what a methodology of care truly feels like. I practised ‘with-nessing’ at the Grips Theatre and took part in group discussions of provocative art pieces at the Hamburger Banhof. I also laughed, hugged, and cried, as inevitably our personal stories split into this professional space.