The Upright Men Collective
The Collective for The Upright Men is a non-profit organization founded in 2012 and based in Switzerland. It contributes first to make known the artistic works produced by this project and secondly to disseminate as widely as possible the concept of human dignity that the Upright Men underline.
Chaired by Aisha Rahamatali, the Collective is formed of (young) people committed to fighting for human dignity and for the memory of the victims of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.
Bruce Clarke
Visual artist and photographer, Bruce Clarke was born in London in 1959. His South African activist parents had recently left for political reasons. It was at the Fine Arts School at Leeds University in the 1980’s that he was initiated to the Art and Language movement. His work engages with contemporary history, the writing and transmission of this history and hopes to stimulate thought on the contemporary world and its representations. Deeply anchored in a school of critical figuration, his artistic research integrates codes finally to use them to criticize and demystify structures of power and injustice.
Before working on the Upright Men project, he created a memorial site near Kigali, the Garden of Memory, a monumental installation project on-going since 2000, in close collaboration with survivors’ families, civil society associations and the Rwandese institutions as well as UNESCO.
Fanny Guex
Ph.D. student in History of religions, this young researcher is the cofounder of the Collective for the Upright Men and the Production Manager of this project.
In 2008, Fanny Guex met the visual artist Bruce Clarke as well as issues related to the history of the Tutsi genocide through literature. This encounter leaded to a first journey in Rwanda in the spring 2010 to attend the commemoration ceremonies, followed by an intellectual commitment for the memory of the victims of the Tutsi genocide.
