UNCAC Coalition Victims of Corruption Working Group discusses art as a means to give voice and identity to victims, featuring Luis Sotelo

How can art be used as a transformative medium for the individual and collective voices of victims of corruption? This question was at the center of a recent virtual meeting of the UNCAC Coalition’s Working group on Victims of Corruption.

Creative processes as a means to create symbolic reparations for victims were presented by guest speaker Luis Carlos Sotelo, drawing on his experience as Concordia University’s Canada Research Chair in Oral History Performance (OHP), associate professor in the Theatre Department and co-director of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS). Sotelo is also the founder of the Acts of Listening Lab (ALLab), a world-leading hub set up to investigate the transformative power of listening to personal narratives from survivors of social trauma.

Listening Acts for Justice and Social Change

Sotelo presented ‘Listening Acts for Justice and Social Change’, focusing on the notions of what it means for Victims of Corruption (VoC) to be heard effectively, and on the role of performance art to facilitate listening to testimonies when the law has failed to provide victims with adequate compensation. Examples Sotelo provided centered around the question: How can civil society use artistic strategies to empower these voices?

The Acts of Listening Lab (ALLab)

is a hub for research-creation on the transformative power of listening in the context of oral history performance. It brings together artists-researchers, communities, and activists from across disciplines and cultures interested in exploring alternative and creative ways of making life stories matter in the public sphere.

Situated on Kanienʼkehá꞉ka territory,
on the 10th floor of Concordia (LB) Building,
1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W. LB-1042-03
www.concordia.ca/allab