HIA Poland Fellowship 2015

The Enthusiasm To Be Frustrated

by Nora Lassahn

Looking out of the window: How to turn a complex issue into a single image

What makes a good human rights campaign? Should it be provocative? Surprising? Simple? While trying to come up with an answer to that question, I realized that it also always more difficult than you anticipated.

When I entered the conference room, where we hold our daily meetings during the HIA Fellowship, somebody was looking in from the outside, dangling right outside the second floor. Today, at the start of our picture and video-workshops, window-cleaners were clearing the massive glass facade of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Initially I was startled. But they could not have chosen a better day then the transition from our input phase to the planning of our actual campaigns. After acquiring knowledge about social and political issues in Poland, we are now trying to transform this knowledge into campaigns for social change - and to reach other people with our ideas. It's time to look out of the window!

But this turned out to be more difficult than I had expected. Putting your ideas into practice also shows you how your first enthusiasm is limited by technical restraints, and leads to the question of how to break down a complex issue into one single message. During the workshops with Mateusz Grabowski from Rochstar ("Graphic-design for Social Change") and Marcin Swystun from OP1 ("Short Introduction to Movie-Making") the other fellows and I got first insights into how this could be achieved. By looking at good examples of successful campaigns - one campaign showing posters of babies resembling dictators, another putting stickers of crouched prisoners into university lockers and finally, another illustrating how a condom can mark the difference between fun and funeral - I asked myself: What do these pictures have in common? Provocation? Sometimes. Creativity? Always. Surprise? Simplicity? Yes! Good campaign pictures have to be understood after once glance and carry a universal message. For me, provocation does not help as much as simplicity - life is so complicated; it is refreshing to feel that for once you can comprehend a matter just by briefly looking at it.

So, not only is a picture worth a thousand words. It also bridges language barriers because it can be internationally understood. Pictures can make communication easier and can unite people to tackle a common cause - whether they refer to this cause as the issue of "refugees", "uchodźca", "біженець" or of "Flüchtlinge".

Marcin Swystun from OP1 combined the message of the universality of images with very practical advice. Not only did he tell us that, "In hell there is a special place for people who shoot their videos horizontally" but also that, "the message is always the king". As a preparation for the first workshop we shot videos in public transport. This was an uncomfortable exercise: People turned away from me, didn't want to be filmed and reacted surprised. Or, even worse, they were doing something very interesting, but by the time I had found my camera in my big "Humanity in Action" bag and had waited for it to load, the person had already walked away.

It is very easy to be a successful human rights activist in your mind, to achieve great goals in theory, and to fantasize about what might happen, once you start campaigning for what you believe in. Real action is more difficult. You have to be at the right place at the right time, be fast and have a good idea. Plus, it can be frustrating and uncomfortable. Some people may not like your campaign; some might ignore or misunderstand it. But nonetheless, it is the only possibility to achieve change. Let's hope that still I'll always have the enthusiasm to be frustrated.