For some, October 14, 1968, was a clarion call to the future.
On that day, a group of 12 black students at UC Santa Barbara, tired of the unequal treatment and passive-aggressive racism they received as Black athletes — and as members of the campus community at large — barricaded themselves in the university’s North Hall.
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.
Dressed head to toe in plastic, Modou Fall is a familiar sight in Dakar. But however playful his costume, his goal couldn’t be more serious: ridding the capital of the scourge of plastic bags.
The ZAD (zone à défendre, or “zone to defend”) in Western France is 4000 acres of wetland, farmland and forest that was originally intended to be built into an airport in 1965 but is now an autonomous territory occupied by 40 different collectives looking to reclaim the land. There are around 200 people living permanently on the zone, in addition to some 2,000 people coming and going.
On the occasion of the European Cultural Capital Graz 2003, WochenKlausur developed a year-long program of activities for older people with severe mental disabilities. The object was to offer them opportunities for a change of their daily routine inside the home.
While Trump’s proposal to detain asylum-seeking and migrant families indefinitely remains open to public comment for the next week, families who have already been detained for longer than the 20-day maximum endure painful separations and terrifying uncertainty while they remain in limbo.
In conjunction with the GUTS world tour, Olivia has launched Olivia Rodrido’s Fund 4 Good, a global initiative committed to building an equitable and just future for all women, girls and people seeking reproductive health freedom.
A portion of the proceeds from all ticket sales at the GUTS world tour will go towards the Fund 4 Good.
In 1987 with AIDS deaths in the thousands and government policy still criminally indifferent, activists formed ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) with the purpose of turning grief and fear into rage and action.
“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.
Jeremy Scott and Moschino may no longer be a thing but the designer is still plenty busy. Case in point, Scott's new partnership with Korean car manufacturer Hyundai, the latest in the latter's ongoing Re:Style upcycling program.
For Hyundai Re:Style 2023, Jeremy Scott has saved discarded Hyundai Motor Car parts from the junk pile, instead transforming them into wearable couture (car-ture?).
It was a quick turnaround for federal employers to recognize Juneteenth as a new federal holiday. But some cities were ready with new statues honoring George Floyd, whose killing by police in Minneapolis last year sparked a nationwide racial justice movement.
In 2023, it is impossible to be an apolitical artist in Eastern Europe. As war rages on in Ukraine, art serves as a powerful and necessary tool, according the members of the Sunflower Solidary Community Center in Warsaw: Maria Beburia, Sebastian Cichocki, Kuba Depczyński, Taras Gembik, Yulia Krivich, Kaja Kusztra, Natalia Sielewicz, and Bogna Stefańska.
An exercise that used drama/and audio visuals to engage with with all election partners, especially the political parties especially the political parties and their candidates/leaders, Electoral Commission, Musicians Association of Ghana, etc to push for a free, fair and peaceful Presidential and Parliamentary election and hand over of power to who ever won the elections peacefully.
In recent years, a fashion for painting the human figure has preoccupied the art world, with an emphasis on race, gender and other urgent social issues. Yet another pressing topic in America has been curiously absent from art: abortion, which became all the more timely when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
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.”
If you've been to a Bay Area protest or community event, you've probably seen -- or even met those nuns in whiteface -- The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Devoted to human rights globally and locally, AIDS education, and respect for diversity, this controversial Order of Queer Nuns has long been a staple of San Francisco's cultural fabric. They join host Joseph Pace for the hour.
Guests:
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.
Rohan Zhou-Lee pens a power letter to Asian women, reminding us of our brilliance, heroism, and inherited centuries of Asian woman power.
To any Asian Woman, cis or trans, who might read this:
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.
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.
FloodNet was a conceptual artwork and a tool for online collective action.
Developed by the collective Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), it took the form of a Java applet that allowed users to send useless requests or personalized messages to a remote web server in a coordinated fashion, thereby slowing it down and filling its error logs with words of protest and gibberish—a kind of virtual sit-in.
In response to an earlier project called "Daily Bread, Gregg Segal collaborated with the United Nations Refugee Agency to bring awareness to the crisis of refugees fleeing Venezuela through his project "Un-Daily Bread."
New York artist Donna Choi wanted to create a “weird, memorable way” to discuss fetishization of Asian women, so she put together a satirical series about how to diagnose Yellow Fever—the specific obsession many Western men have with Asian culture.
The over-the-top series is a discussion of race crafted for the attention span of the Internet.
I emailed with Choi about her thinking behind the Yellow Fever series.
With the intention of recognizing the work of the Latin American carreteros (garbage pickers) that collect recyclable materials in wheel carts, and increase environmental consciousness, artist Mundano created “Pimp My Carroça"