The installation’s message: human rights violations take place unobserved, “in the dark” – until Amnesty International makes them visible and brings them to the world’s attention.

A candle, the international symbol of hope and Amnesty’s figurative mark, projects a human rights violation scene onto the wall as a seemingly lifelike shadow.

When a visitor steps up to the installation, changes in the lighting conditions turn them from neutral viewer to shocked eyewitness within mere seconds.

Amnesty International’s figurative mark is a candle with barbed wire. Exposing the truth, generating change, offering hope - it has become a unique symbol of people speaking out effectively for human justice and dignity in our time.

An LED was fixed to the candle, which lit up a very thin tailor-made mounted template on the wall from below, projecting a seemingly lifelike human rights violation scene as a shadow onto the wall.

The template itself did not give any clues as to the motif – only the light and the distortion projected a seemingly lifelike human rights violation scene as a shadow onto the wall.

The installation’s aim was to adapt Amnesty International’s abstract effort “to bring light into the darkness” to an art installation. In this way, we addressed in particular an international and art-loving audience, and raised their awareness of the human-rights issue.

The “Ai Weiwei in New York” exhibition, which took place between 15.10.2011 and 18.3.2012 in Berlin, was the perfect occasion for the light installation. In 2011, the Chinese artist was arrested after publicly criticising the Chinese government – and, not least thanks to Amnesty’s efforts– he was released the same year.The Martin Gropius Bau is an internationally renowned exhibition venue in Berlin that is open to the public six days a week and hosts changing exhibitions by well-known artists (Frida Kahlo, Olafur Eliasson, Ai Weiwei, etc.).

Visitors were invited to support amnesty international by donating directly my mobile