Starting on September 22, the Museu de Arte Brasileira da FAAP (FAAP Brazilian Art Museum) presents “Françoise Schein – The Human Rights Artist at the MAB-FAAP.” This exhibition features the works made by the artist based on the 1789 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that were installed in subway stations of great urban centers such as Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, and São Paulo.
Recognized as the Human Rights artist, the architect and urbanist Françoise Schein made a retrospective of the main works she created and of the activities developed with the local populations. The artist develops projects to be permanently integrated with the urban network and in locations with great public circulation. Cities and their inhabitants are the universe of her work, in which she seeks to reflect on the relationship between these people and the environment in which they are inserted.
In addition to bringing up human rights for discussion, the works of Françoise Schein also incorporate the history of the city where the work is produced. In 1989, to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution, she used the text from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the first time, using letters painted on the wall tiles of the embarkation platform at the Concorde subway station in Paris.
Three years later, in Lisbon, she paid homage to human rights and the great discoveries by Portuguese navigators in 50 works that were spread through all the platforms of the Parque subway station. Since then, the historic relationship of the country with Human Rights has become a salient characteristic of Françoise, who has similar works in the subways of Brussels (Belgium), Haifa (Israel), Stockholm (Sweden), Berlin (Germany), and in Brazilian cities such as Rio de Janeiro (Copacabana Station) and São Paulo (Luz Station).
Some of these works can be seen in the exhibit in great photographic panels that, accompanied by explanatory texts, will give dimension to the importance of her work.
Another eight new panels will also be exhibited, painted by the artist on ceramic tiles, which will be added to eight other panels already installed at the Luz subway station in São Paulo, to complete the large mural “To Write the Human Rights.” The work was begun in 2010, with the participation of other artists and high school students and, in addition to discussing human rights, it narrates the history of São Paulo.
The exhibition was held in 2014, at the CIVA (Centre International pour la Ville, l'Architecture et le Paysage), in Brussels.