ISLAMABAD: The project to tattoo letters of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the skin of people has arrived in Manchester city of the United Kingdom.
As part of an international art project, thirty people will have one letter of the 1948 document tattooed on their bodies. The project aims to tattoo the Declaration on the skins of 6,773 people, with the 1cm squared letters applied one at a time.
People between the ages of 18 to 30 in the UK have been invited to submit applications to participate in the project. The initiative, which was started in 2012 by the Dutch artist Sander van Bussel, seeks to raise awareness of the Declaration.
Sander van Bussel began his work with the Declaration’s opening phrase, “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” consisting of its first 50 words.
On the day of the event, Van Bussel will document the participant’s personal stories.
He expressed that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written by the United Nations in 1948 to protect humanity from the horrors of World War II, seems to have lost much of its hope as little has changed, and the global divide continues to grow.
However, The tattoo artist Dax from India, based in Manchester, will apply the letters over the course of one day. The event, managed and hosted by the Manchester arts venue Contact, in collaboration with Human Rights Tattoo, will take place on September 9.
Applicants are required to express their understanding of the human rights movement and their reasons for wanting the tattoo. Participants can donate a fee of their choosing for the tattoo.
Currently, the first 23 articles are already tattooed on 4,601 participants from 77 countries. Van Bussel aims to complete the project on December 10, which is the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
