In a single hour, Beyoncé's Lemonade re-wrote the textbook definition of what a visual album should look like. The genre-bending music it introduced will define the struggles a generation was enduring in 2016, specifically for black women. The project transcends every definition pop has ever had; blending R&B, contemporary rock, country, reggae, soul and hip-hop in its 12 tracks, occasionally fusing several of these into a single song.
The protracted queue. That was the first thing I noticed when I arrived. It was winding, unending and impossible to see exactly where it began. I asked one of the security guards if he had any indication as to the waiting time. His response was a “your guess is as good as mine” shrug. As the mammoth line snaked around the building, my heart sank further – it is a myth that Brits love to queue; we feel compelled to, we don’t love it.
By Latoya Peterson, Racialicious
Looking for a way to celebrate the folks who raised you–but from a slightly different perspective than you would get down at Hallmark? The good people over at Strong Families (a project of Forward Together/Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice) present Mama’s Day, a multicultural, queer-friendly celebration of the folks who do some of the most significant (and unpaid) work in our society.
“Cabaret Con-Sensual is an effort comprised of actors, dancers, comedians, producers, writers, and other artists who strive to champion consent and discuss rape-culture through the subversive, yet expressive medium of the performing arts.”
The show was created by Bitsy La Bourbon, founder of the anti rape campaign and non profit organization More Than No.
"Medicine Man," a mobile sculpture that MAKE ART/STOP AIDS commissioned from San Francisco-based artists Daniel Goldstein and John Kapellas. The piece is constructed of pill bottles that Goldstein and Kapellas, and their partners, saved up from treatment regimens dating as far back as 1985. The artists assembled the bottles in the shape of the Virgin of Guadalupe, with an aureole of syringes arrayed around her body in a halo.
Play Smart a series of yearly events where photographers and designers are gathered and designed cards to trade. It has lasted from 2010 to this year. Play Smart 2010 is the first in the series. In 2010, Play Smart featured photographers Aaron Cobbett, inkedKenny, Greg Mitchell and Slava Mogutin and was designed by John Chaich.
"Divided we are weak. Together we are strong."
Those were the words tweeted by openly gay football star Michael Sam, thanking his University of Missouri family for their support. He posted the message after arriving at the school and seeing a group of Mizzou students surrounding the perimeter in order to block out a Westboro Baptist Church protest.
The Immigrant Yarn Project (IYP), organized and created by Cindy Weil was a massive work of public and democratic (crowd-sourced), yarn-based art honoring our immigrant heritage and promoting tolerance, difference, and community. Weil reached out across the state and beyond to collect yarn-based creations by immigrants and their descendants.
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.
ONGOING ORGANIZATION:
CALLED: Iranti [pronounced írantì] is the Yoruba word for ‘memory’. Largely found in South West Nigeria and parts of Benin Republic, the Yoruba people consider memory a prized form of intelligence which determines how often one remembers what they see and hear.
An intervention created by the April 25 2015 Queer Crisis Collective organized by the Helix Queer Performance Network (HQPN), and part of an ongoing queer resistance project mentored by Avram Finkelstein. Over a period of 2 weekends, 8 artists met at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics to design a creative intervention during Pride month in NYC.
“Art is so often only experienced through looking,” artist Caitlin Rose Sweet explained to The Huffington Post. “It’s a short pathway from the eyes to the brain. I want the whole body involved.”
Several months after Samira, a 16-year-old Florida transgender girl, began taking gender-affirming hormones, the Florida medical board’s ban on transgender youth healthcare stopped her in her tracks.
“The day before the policy passed for real, I was dropped from my provider suddenly, without notice, and had to scramble to get a meeting to get that cleared up,” Samira told ABC News in an interview.
Many people were waiting for the release of the upcoming game Hogwarts Legacy based on the book series Harry Potter. The long antcipated game has been subject to alot of criticism since the game was first announced in September 2020, mostly due to J.K Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, and her outspoken views on the transgender community.
This act of art and activism displayed in the photograph was created in 1994 by the group La Radical Gai at the height of the HIV and AIDS epidemic that decimated many communities in Madrid. The first case of AIDS in Spain was documented in 1982. Since that time, 85,000 people in Spain have been diagnosed with AIDS and 60,000 people have died from the deadly virus (Soriano, Ramos, Barreiro, Fernandez-Montero, 2018).
The Vivienne Foundation exists to honour, protect and continue the legacy of Vivienne's creativity and activism.
Since the start of her career in the 1970s, Vivienne was renowned not only for her fashion design, but also her activism. Vivienne always utilised her platform of prestige to make the world a better place.
The exhibition "Unpacking the 21st Century: Artists Engaging the World" included work by five New York City area artists that examined a range of social and political issues and offered companion special events.
An oversized facsimile of Rush poppers, tipped over, pouring out its viscous contents: this example of underground gay iconography blown up to almost belligerent proportions perfectly represents the aims of Party Out of Bounds: Nightlife as Activism Since 1980, a new exhibition at La MaMa’s La Galleria. The group show, curated by Emily Colucci and Osman Can Yerebakan, gathers together works by a small yet distinct menagerie of queer artists.
Spanish soccer has witnessed and engaged in a variety of conversations in the last few years: Racism, politics, xenophobia, territorial issues, corruption, inmigration. However, there is an issue that remains untouched, and this issue is homophobia. Soccer is still a context where it is acceptable to use the word "marica" ("queer") in a pejorative way.
There were still bloodstains outside the Midwood Mobil gas station on Friday night; a fresh sign taped to a lamppost read “A Hate Crime Happened Here.” This is the place where, less than a week prior, 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley, a gay Black dancer and choreographer, made a pit stop with friends after a Jersey beach day.
Text by David Artavia
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An ad from Calvin Klein on Mother's Day featuring a pregnant transgender man and his trans partner has sparked a wave of backlash on social media.
Serene colors and technical set pieces create a surreal ambience as performers delicately hover into the black void above the stage. These performers belong to Kinetic Light, an "internationally-recognized disability arts ensemble". In 2022, the ensemble performed Wired, a "potent contemporary aerial dance performance that explores race, gender, and disability stories of barbed wire in the United States".