County of Orange – Human Rights Commission
Fred Cook, Chairperson
Nadia Allen, Chris Ashman, Dr. Joseph Birnbaum
Pat Claiborne, Nolly Climes, Angel Figueroa, Anne Horsham
Rev. Deacon Mavourneen “Vonnie” Hubbard, Dr. Hubert Lee
Anita Manley, Christine Sadowski
Steven M. Neuhaus
County Executive
18 Seward Avenue, Middletown, New York 10940
Tel: (845) 615-3680 Fax: 845-346-1223
www.orangecountygov.com
STATEMENT OF MR. FRED COOK, CHAIRMAN
ORANGE COUNTY HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
For 5 years the Orange County Human Rights Commission, in collaboration with
SUNY Orange and the Orange County Arts Council, has sponsored “An Artist’s
Response To Human Rights”. The purpose of this exhibit is to allow our Orange
County Students to be aware, to consider and to celebrate the ratification of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Junior and senior high school students
are asked to depict one of the 30 articles of the Declaration through literary or
visual artworks. Through this exhibit, our students will sometimes reinforce and
challenge us all in terms of our core beliefs and the Commission feels this is good.
This year, we had an artist who after displaying their artwork felt their submission
did not 100% convey clearly the point they wanted to make. This artist also felt
that their submission could be offensive to some and that was not their intention.
This artist felt since their artwork did not clearly represent their thoughts, with
respect to their chosen article of the Universal Declaration, they want to remove
their piece from the show. Again, it was the artist’s decision to remove their
submission. The Human Rights Commission supported the artist’s position. It
also should be noted that the Commission would have supported the artist’s
position to keep their submission in the art exhibit. After all the Commission’s
belief is, we want people to think, we want people to discuss, and we want people
to be challenged. Again, the Commission thinks this exhibit, A Celebration of
Human Rights, allows an opportunity for an open discourse to discuss and
challenge our thoughts and beliefs with respect to basic human rights.