Human Family: Works on Paper by Otávio Roth

Kean University Galleries and Collections and the Human Rights Institute are pleased to announce a solo exhibition in the Human Rights Institute Gallery, _Human Family: Works on Paper by Otávio Roth_, on view September 22, 2026, through December 4, 2026. The opening reception will be held on Monday, September 28 from 5:30 – 7:30 P.M. in the Human Rights Institute Gallery. The Human Rights Institute Gallery, located on the first floor in the Nancy Thompson Learning Commons, is open to the public Monday through Friday 10:00 A.M. – 4:00 P.M. For the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we celebrate the myriad of self-determination statements it has inspired globally. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was the international community's response to the atrocities committed during World War II. In 1978, Otávio Roth created a series of woodcut prints on handmade paper illustrating all thirty articles of the UDHR, commissioned by the United Nations, where they remain on display. Roth's work as an artist and educator emphasized the importance of a plural society, seeking to represent the collective as well as individual characteristics "of all members of the human family," to borrow from the UDHR's preamble. Eventually he created children's books in multiple languages, illustrating the articles for the youngest members of society. All thirty prints, documentary photographs, and a participatory art installation called _A Árvore_ [The Tree], that grows as students add their own paper leaves, will be on display.