Welcome to our Garden

“If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it, and people have found a particular kind of peace in forests, meadows, parks and gardens.” — Rebecca Solnit

During the slow winter months we gladly leave behind, we have been quietly busy preparing the ground for our new Rights Studio Garden. Now it’s time to reconnect. 

Beyond just another metaphor, gardens hold so much symbolism: they offer us a way of understanding our work, our role, and our vision while also developing our ecological awareness. 

As we wrote before, they are also a symbol of our inner life; an ideal we aspire to. As a physical space, a garden is a place we can get lost in, where we can slow down, contemplate, reflect, think, but it is also a place that requires care, patience, and hard work.

So we raked the soil, we cleaned, and weeded, we planted some seeds and now are ready to invite you to take a walk with us in our new garden — our digital space to make art and human rights grow, aka, our website

As you wander, you will see that this is a work in progress and things will begin to bloom and mushroom in the weeks to come. We hope it better reflects who we are and what we do. May it be a place that entices you to contribute, or simply contemplate and be quietly curious. We hope you enjoy the view and the walk we start together.


Words, Veronica Yates
illustration, Miriam Sugranyes

References and Further Reading

Orwell’s Roses, Rebecca Solnit 

The Overstory, Richard Powers

Wintering, The power of rest and retreat in difficult times, Katherine May

Reclaiming Words: Courage

Courage (n.): Mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear or difficulty; the ability to control your fear in a dangerous or difficult situation. 

Jul 29, 2022

Seeing With New Eyes

Oct 7, 2022

Working With Emergence

“Think of a formation of migrating birds that knows the way across oceans and continents to its far-away destination, and the pathfinding capacity of which resides not in the individual birds but somewhere in the connection between them.” – Anna Katharina Schaffner

Jul 9, 2021

Utopia as a Garden

May 28, 2021

In Pursuance of Curiosity

“It’s not always easy to be comfortable in the space created by open questions. It’s tempting to hide in small rooms built from quick answers.”― Merlin Sheldrake

Feb 4, 2022

Seeking Simplicity

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move the opposite direction.”— E. F. Schumacher