Životní příběhy

Stories for human rights

Stories for human rights are joint project of people with the experience with institutionalisation, researchers, artists, musicians, journalists and others with interest in experimental storytelling.

We are interested in the stories of people who have spent long period of time in various „homes“, psychiatric hospitals and other asylums. We jointly listen to such stories, record them and retell them in different media.

We have put together a research group, whose key members are people with the experience with the life in an asylum, to tell stories and to visit places of memory. All this is possible thanks to the support of the Norwegian grants and the Faculty of Humanities of the Charles university.

Together we look for ways to tell our stories as best as we can, caring for both the emotions accompanying storytelling and the broader impact.

Cooperation is an important part of our story. No story stands by itself, all are born from narrating and listening. All are parts of other stories.

Some of our stories have never been told before publicly. By their retelling, we want to broaden the space of shared memories.

Every story is different and will have different impact. Like stones thrown onto the water that create different wave patterns depending on their weight and shape as well as on the power and angle of the pitch, every story will resonate differently. But they have, or so it seems, at least one thing in common: they are born out of common human desire to speak, to be listened to, to break silences which hurt us.

Životní příběhy za lidská práva are told by Vlastimil Bouška, Dorota Brázdovičová, Karel Čacký, Zuzana Pavelkková Čevelová, Anna Fontánová, Dana Hradcová, Bohuslava Jablonická, Brit Jensen, Věra Kovalčíková, Roman Radkovič, Jano Solčáni, Jaroslav Stránský, Michal Synek, Miloš Šandera a Josef Šopík.