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2020 Was the Year of Protest Music
Practitioner:
Ambrose Akinmusire
Date:
Apr 1 2020
2020 was the year of when protest music blared everywhere. For a long period, Black people struggled against police brutality and in the uproar of George Floyd's murder, BLM protests instantly swept over the country. Of the many protest music that was released that year, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire wrote a song that would spearhead raging sentiments towards racial injustice beyond just jazz.
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1
Queering Utopia: Circus Amok at the Scholar & Feminist Conference on Utopia
Practitioner:
Circus Amok, Jennifer Miller
Date:
Apr 22 2013
“Stay cool, stay calm, you have the right to remain silent. / Don’t run, don’t resist, and get that badge number.”
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3
Once banned for his work, anti-apartheid activist highlights role of politics in art
Practitioner:
Gavin Jantjes
Date:
Jun 19 2024
In 1978, while studying print-making in Hamburg, Gavin Jantjes was deemed a persona non grata by South Africa. His crime? Creating a series of prints that documented the violence and discrimination in the apartheid state, which he gathered together under the tongue-in-cheek name of a "colouring book".
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1
This Is Not Your Body
Practitioner:
This Is Not Your Body
Date:
Nov 25 2014
Two reflective stickers in a bathroom stall. When you sit down you can see your face in the bottom one. When you stand you can see your face in the top one, your groin in the bottom one. The top one says "Public", the bottom one says "Private". Or maybe the top one says "Private", and the bottom one says "Public". Which one is correct?
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4
HOME
Practitioner:
Julia Vogl
Date:
Jul 27 2012
In partnership with Southwark Council, Peckham Settlement, Peckham Space and Resonance FM. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and Kickstarter Campaign supporters.
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3
“Un violador en tu camino” (“A rapist in your way”)
Practitioner:
LASTESIS
Date:
Nov 1 2019
Last month, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, dozens of women gathered outside the supreme court building in Santiago, Chile—a country now beset by popular uprisings against inequality—for a feminist flash mob.
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5
Operation Schildkröte
Practitioner:
Occupy Dusseldorf
Date:
Mar 17 2012
Occupy Dusseldorf was inspired by an editorial cartoonfrom Brooklyn, New York based artist Mark Hurwitt tocreate an imaginative street theatre performance artprotest action. They marched with hundreds of medievalshields created out of enlargements of Hurwitt's arttranslated into many languages forming a giant turtle
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3
Crows That Pick Up Trash
Practitioner:
Crows
Date:
Aug 20 2018
Oh, to be a crow. Maligned as scavengers that torment their dead brethren. Portrayed as aerial killers in the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock classic, “The Birds.” In France, though, the wily crow is getting a makeover. Puy du Fou, a historical theme park in the Loire region about four hours from Paris, has trained six crows to pick up cigarette butts and bits of trash and dump them in a box. Mon Dieu! Are the pigeons of Paris next?
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4
Washing River 洗河
Practitioner:
Yin Xiuzhen 尹秀珍
Date:
Jan 1 1995
Since the 1980s, revitalizing the economy has always been the country's development strategy. Although China's economy has grown rapidly in just twenty years, attracting worldwide attention, environmental destruction has also become a problem. For example, the Fu Nan River in Chengdu, like many rivers nationwide, is severely polluted.
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3
LEGOVC
Practitioner:
iancooketal
Date:
Feb 22 2018
LEGOVC is a fictional, made up, 100% fake, plastic, 'pantomime villain' Vice Chancellor of a fake British University struggling as his utter managerial brilliance crumbles in the face of sustained strike action by his staff after their pension scheme is slashed.
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3
NYU Students' Response to COVID-19 Housing Closure
Practitioner:
NYU Student Body/NYU's Inter-Residential Hall Council
Date:
Mar 16 2020
This was a protest posted on Change.org in response to NYU's forced eviction deadline on students living in on-campus housing. The following was the information posted on the site: We, the undergraduate student body of New York University, strongly urge NYU to rescind the call for students to evacuate NYU residence halls before March 22nd.
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4
#NOSFALTAN43
Practitioner:
Lavinia Raccanello
Date:
Dec 11 2014
On December 2014 I've been artist in residence at MANY MINI RESIDENCY a short-term residency program organized by Sarrita Hunn and Ryan Thayer and hosted by GYB BYG in Mexico City. During my 12 hour residency I’ve worked on the case of the 43 students from Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa who went missing while in the custody of Iguala’s police force in September 2014.
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2
Where an Internet Joke Is Not Just a Joke
Practitioner:
Pi San
Date:
Oct 26 2011
From The New York TimeBy BROOK LARMER
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3
untitled (Long Live the Real King)
Practitioner:
Unknown
Date:
Feb 24 2025
An A.I. generated video of Donald Trump sucking Elon Musk's toes was broadcast at the Department of Housing and Development headquarters in DC in February of 2025. As an actual art piece, we can debate if the video itself is art. However, the caption, subject matter of the fake video, and chosen location to broadcast is definitely a strategic work of creative activism. From the New York Times:
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4
Fashion In Action!
Practitioner:
Michaela Angela Davis
Date:
Sep 9 2010
On the opening day of the Spring/Summer 2011's season of Mercedes Benz's New York Fashion Week, former fashion editor, speaker, and fashion activist Michaela Angela Davis led a protest of approximately 20 black women, dressed in black suits, carrying signs with the names of every fashion editor in the 40 year history of African American fashion and lifestyle magazine, Essence Magazine.
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2
Zanele Muholi: 'I'm a visual activist'
Practitioner:
Zanele Muholi
Date:
Jan 5 2018
I am a visual activist. Most of what I have done over the years focuses on black LGBTQIA+ and gender-non-conforming individuals from South Africa and other neighbouring countries. It’s about making sure we exist in the visual archive. I call myself a visual activist — or, rather, a cultural activist, because this work is not only about the arts; I’m focusing on education, I’m dealing with culture in a way that confronts a number of issues.
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4
Acción Poética
Practitioner:
Acción Poética
Date:
Feb 25 1996
The Acción Poética movement is a literary phenomenon that began in Monterrey, Mexico in 1996. It was founded by Mexican poet Armando Alanis Pulido and involves painting and intervening abandoned walls in cities with fragments of poetry. The content is usually love poems or optimistic phrases. Also, some phrases refer to the current situation in the cities (though one of their rules is to not talk about politics or religious beliefs).
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2
Rock The Reactors
Practitioner:
Environmental Library Fund
Date:
Mar 7 2013
Founded in 2006, Rock The Reactors enlists the art and fashion community in support of organizations working to shut down the Indian Point nuclear power plant in NY. Shut Down Indian Point with Fashion!
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1
NannyVan
Practitioner:
REV and Marisa Jahn
Date:
Jan 1 2013
Reversing decades of discrimination set into place when New Deal labor laws intentionally excluded domestic workers, New York State in 2010 passed the very first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Hawaii and California followed soon after with other states soon to follow.
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3
Lesbianas Se Difunden and the Feminist Movement in Spain: Taking Back Ownership of the Female Body
Practitioner:
Lesbianas Se Difunden
Date:
Jun 1 1995
From 1993 to 1998, Spanish activist group Lesbianas Se Difunden (LSD) produced and published a collection of texts and visuals called Non-Grata (Snyder 10), using erotic images of the female body and sexual relationships to capture their audiences’ attention. Within these graphic publications would be calls for queer activism, female freedom, anti-capitalist critiques, and the overall necessity for protest (Snyder 10).
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