A hundred days. That’s how long it took Xiao Meili to walk from Beijing, in the arid north, to the humid, central city of Changsha. Since September, the 24-year-old has been trekking south and west across the Chinese heartland, along rumbling highways, around construction sites, down dusty streets. She stops along the way to send letters to local officials. Her plea: China must change the way it handles sex abuse.
Since November 2020, tens of thousands of farmers have been living in tents at sprawling camps pitched on highways outside the capital New Delhi.
Large barricades erected by the police and topped with barbed wire stand a few hundred meters from the camp, preventing the farmers from encroaching any closer to the center of Delhi. At times, violence has broken out during demonstrations.
Creative Graffiti at the Urban Culture Festival in Germany
By Loredana Loy
A street art project by by KD Key Detail from Minsk, Belarus--created and featured at the IBUg 2013 Urban Culture Festival in Zwickau, Germany.
The project is entitled "Bon Appetit." Images speak louder than words. Links and photos below.
"Dark Side of the Prism" is a Firefox Add-on that provides a soundtrack for our surveilled internet meanderings.
The public recently learned that the US National Security Agency's on-going internet surveillance program, Prism, collects data from users of major websites.
The ASAP Initiative is a non-profit social program dedicated to promoting mental health awareness.
Founded in 2018 by Sh. Majda AlSabah, the ASAP Initiative is on a mission to make a positive social impact by supporting people with mental health concerns and destigmatizing mental health disorders.
The ASAP Initiative is a subsidiary of ASAP - a beauty brand in Kuwait founded by Sh. Majda AlSabah.
Breaking the Silence: The Importance of Mustang
Eylem Atakav on how Mustang offers an important challenge to perceptions of gender and female sexuality in Turkey.
As Deniz Gamze Ergüven's acclaimed debut film Mustang screens at the ICA, Eylem Atakav discusses gender and female sexuality in Turkey, looking at the importance of film in making women's experiences visible and changing perceptions.
"For those who haven’t seen it, Big Bang Big Boom (2010) is yet another fabulous animated graffiti parable from the Blu
art collective. Their work is endlessly fascinating — animated
creatures sliding seamlessly from walls, through sand, along pipes and
under bridges into stop-motion interaction with beach garbage and
Buses serving several routes in central Seoul have acquired a new and highly controversial passenger: a barefoot “comfort woman”, wearing a traditional hanbok dress with her hands resting on her knees.
Born in China in 1941, artist Lily Yeh experienced first-hand the ravages of that country’s civil war when her family became refugees, fleeing to Taiwan as the communists took over. That personal story and the story of Yeh’s global art activism with communities from North Philadelphia to Rwanda and China is the subject of a new documentary film, The Barefoot Artist, now in post-production and ready for viewing later this year.
“How different. Exotic,” commented one women as she watched a group of almost 50 people — mostly young and black, many wearing bright fabrics with African designs — stroll through the Shopping Leblon mall.
Working in a grocery store has earned me and my co-workers a temporary status. After years of being overlooked, we suddenly feel a sense of responsibility, solidarity, and pride. On a private Facebook group page for my company, Trader Joe’s, one employee from Washington State posted a picture of a company-issued work shirt hanging from the ceiling of the store. A sign attached to the shirt read not all heroes wear scrubs.
Amidst a crowd of protesters and oversized signs, Pat Walsh shouted, “What’s disgusting? Union busting?”
At a glance, Walsh, a woman with well-kept gray hair and an open
smile, didn’t strike one as the usual angry protester. But that night,
Walsh was fighting.
“My husband, John, has been locked out from Sotheby’s,” says Walsh.
“He’s been a worker for 30 years. I’m here to fight for him.” Currently,
"Project Black Mask HK (PBMHK) was founded by a (then) 18-year-old, Joyce Ho, who is an American-born Hong Konger. On May 28, 2020, during a peak of the Coronavirus Pandemic, many people expressed frustration with their inability to protest on the streets (of the United States) in support of the freedom and democracy for Hong Kong. PBMHK became a space where people could do exactly that.
In 2008, Iceland was in turmoil. There was a systematic failure of its three main commercial banks. The Economist called the collapse the largest suffered by any country in history, relative to Iceland’s population size. In response to what was seen as government inertia, protests began to take place from around October of that year. However, the real fun began in January 2009.
The political artist I chose to investigate is Ruth Peche, a Spanish sculptor and photographer. Her themes tend to center around plastic waste and the impact it has on the environment, using this as a muse for describing the relationship human society has with the natural world. Peche’s interest in art activism, particularly with themes of preserving the environment, is something that was sparked for her in during her childhood years.
Filling Stomachs to Open Minds on Immigration
In Sweden, Dinners Melt Cultural Barriers
STOCKHOLM — Last year, when Ebba Akerman, 31, was teaching Swedish to immigrants in the suburbs of this city, she ran into one of her students on the train and asked him whether he enjoyed living in her country.
Khalil Bandib is a Berkeley-based, award-winning editorial cartoonist with a unique perspective. He critiques a myriad of topics, from racism and homophobia to foreign policy and the Patriot Act. Bandib was born in North Africa under a French colonist regime; he brings a non-Eurocentric perspective not typically visible in large corporate media.