In a bid to fight the spread of COVID-19, the EU Delegation to Ghana on Wednesday 27 May joined the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and artists from the Ghana Graffiti Collective, to launch an initiative to use street art and graffiti to create awareness about coronavirus and migration.
The artwork created by the Ghana Graffiti collective speak about hope, tolerance, love and solidarity.
This is a prime example of the marriage of art and activism. The Silence = Death poster is simple but extremely powerful representation of the obstacles the AIDS movement was facing (suppression of gay people + their problems, lack of awareness surrounding the pandemic).
Philadelphia poet laureate Trapeta B. Mayson launched the Healing Verse Philly Poetry Line (1-855-763-6792), a toll-free telephone line that offers callers a 90-second poem by a Philadelphia-connected poet. A new poem will be featured each Monday throughout 2021.
Starting in 2019 out of the East Harlem neighborhood in New York, Watermelon has served as recurring series of cookout-themed events that are 100% vegan, while also centering BIPOC businesses. People from all over the city come to the reoccurring events to enjoy different vegan recipes and learn about different aspects of the vegan lifestyle and activism. Brands and organizations are welcome to participate upon coordination with the organizers.
The Youth Activist Art Archive (YAAA) is a dedicated platform that highlights and celebrates the creative efforts of young individuals (26 years old and younger) actively participating in diverse social movements and causes. YAAA acknowledges the vital role and innovative vision of young activists who employ their artistic talents to envision and advocate for a brighter future.
Environmental activist Ella Daish has created a giant tampon applicator as part of a protest against single-use plastic. The piece is made out of period plastic found polluting beaches, waterways, and local ecosystems in the UK. Daish sourced 1,200 applicators from 15 different locations across the United Kingdom. Of the plastic applicators collected for the project, 87.5 percent came from one brand, Tampax.
In a video uploaded on Sunday, YouTuber MrBeast announced that he was going to help “1000 blind people see for the first time” by sponsoring their cataract surgeries. “It’s gonna be crazy,” MrBeast says, in front of an audience of applauding patients. Throughout the video, MrBeast—real name Jimmy Donaldson—talks to people about their blurred eyesight before their surgery.
Prison inmates in Mexico have suffered from coronavirus infections at a higher rate than the country as a whole, and pandemic lockdowns have reduced their already limited contact with the outside world.
But one group of women inmates at a prison west of Mexico City have managed to benefit, as the lockdown spurred a wave of professionals with time on their hands to donate online classes.
During the current COVID-19 outbreak in New York, many transgender people are experiencing a loss of income that, over the next few days, may increase dramatically.
In 2020, GLITS raised over one million dollars in less than a month through a grassroots organizing campaign with a clear objective, a call to action, and an open source toolkit. The objective was to raise one million dollars to purchase a building that would permanently house and provide services for transgender peoples of color in New York City. They created a toolkit with coordinated and captivating imagery and made it available to everyone.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have released a pair of live albums to benefit relief efforts in response to devastating wildfires in their native Australia.
A 43-year-old ICU nurse, Jason Odhner is, as one might imagine, awfully busy these days. He works at several local hospitals, is the co-founder of a health-justice nonprofit called Phoenix Allies for Community Health, and he recently started an initiative called #FrontlineHouses, which is connecting health care workers with housing during the coronavirus pandemic.
A TYPICAL EPISODE of Journal Rappé begins with Senegalese rapper Makhtar “Xuman” Fall dressed in a suit and seated behind a news desk. At first glance, the show looks like an ordinary newscast. But then Xuman (pronounced human) launches into his intro, rapping in French instead of talking. “Welcome! Make yourself comfortable. These are the news for you. Some good ones and bad ones too. But they’re all news for you.”
In 1932, Bennett Cerf, cofounder of Random House Publishing, acquired the rights to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses in the United States, believing that the book would be as successful as it had been throughout Europe. But Cerf had a problem. The book was banned in the United States and would be seized as soon as it came off the printing press, which would lose Cerf millions of dollars.
Welcome to Doing It Right, a column where Eater meets chefs, restaurateurs, and entrepreneurs who recognize challenges in their communities — and are actually doing something about it. In this installment, we head to New Orleans to focus on the work of activist Ashtin Berry.
This action was suggested in the workshop assembly by a neighbor of Arrayán street itself. At the end of this street giving the market there was a wall in a state of collapse that
concerned the neighborhood. On several occasions, either neighbors or from the same Peña Bética in front of them, they had
given by the City Council, but without results. And every day having to go all the way through that gorge with two
In 2013, Ghana ThinkTank received a Creative Capital Award for Emerging Fields, enabling them to begin the multi-year ThinkTank at the Border project. In this project, they are collecting problems from civilian border patrols like the Minutemen, "Patriot" groups, and Nativist organizations, and bringing them to be solved by think tanks of undocumented workers in San Diego and recently deported immigrants in Tijuana.
The Mirror Casket project is a sculpture, performance, and visual call to action designed and orchestrated by a collaborative of St. Louis community artists in response to the shooting death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, MO.
In Pittsburgh, Memphis and Los Angeles, massive billboards recently popped up declaring, “Birds Aren’t Real.”
On Instagram and TikTok, Birds Aren’t Real accounts have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers, and YouTube videos about it have gone viral.
Last month, Birds Aren’t Real adherents even protested outside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to demand that the company change its bird logo.
The Dannenröder Forest in central Germany, is known, affectionately, by those who are trying to protect it, as “Danni”. Danni is an old growth forest – whole sections of it have grown and evolved without direct human influence – but for the last four decades it has been threatened by the building of a new motorway which, if built, would cut this showpiece of sustainable forestry in half.
“Potholes!” That’s what Nikola Pisarev, a co-founder of the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) in North Macedoniona responded with when asked what sort of impact creative activism can have. Nikola went on to explain what he meant, describing a series of actions that they had staged in small towns and municipalities across the nation. As is the case in many countries, Macedonia is plagued with official corruption.
The outbreak of the coronavirus has brought international scrutiny down on China’s political system. Again. A few commentators have applauded the efficiency of the Chinese Communist Party’s response, but most have zoomed in on its weaknesses. Some have even blamed the party itself for the outbreak, calling the disease a “Communist coronavirus” or “the Belt and Road Pandemic.”
If you’ve spent a decent amount of time on Twitter, you’re probably familiar with the concept of K-pop fancams. The short clips of live performances, primarily by South Korean acts, often dominate replies on the app and are hated by many. This week, however, the social phenomenon has taken over in a different way: to fight for the rights of Black Lives Matter protesters seeking justice after the death of George Floyd.
from "Laugh, O Revolution: Humor in the Egyptian Uprising" by Anna Louie Sussman, in 2011.
Revolutions can be messy. They can be tragic. As long as the Internet is working, they can be tweeted. And, as Egyptians demonstrated during their 18 days of protest, they can also be funny.
Fashion designers from L.A. to Milan are picking up their shears in solidarity to do their part to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to at-risk patients and primary care providers.