Main Gallery

Capitol Lawn Covered in 7,000 Pairs of Shoes
Practitioner:
avaaz
Date:
Mar 13 2018
Protesters left 7,000 pairs of shoes in front of the Capitol building Tuesday to symbolize the number of children killed by gun violence in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012. From 8:30 am to 2 pm, the shoes were displayed on the southeast lawn in the hope of sending a clear message to Congress: Reform gun control legislation or more children will be killed by gun violence.
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AIDS Memorial Quilt
Practitioner:
Cleve Jones
Date:
Nov 1 1985
In June of 1987, a small group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease.
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2015 Die-In Protest Against Gender Violence
Practitioner:
Women in Black of Madrid
Date:
Sep 2 2015
On September 2nd 2015, a die-in protest to advocate against gender violence was carried out by a group called Women in Black (Olmedilla, 2015). This form of protest was likely inspired by other die-in protests in Spain and represented Spanish women who have died due to domestic violence (DV). A group of women dressed in black clothing gathered on the streets of Madrid. One by one they fell to the ground and lay there, acting dead.
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Chicano Murals
Practitioner:
Emiliano Zapata, Tierra Y Libertad
Date:
Apr 22 2014
In El Paso more than 100 murals have been painted since the mid-1960s. The murals, located throughout the city's various corridors, often depict themes common to Chicano muralism, such as mestizo heritage or social problems, but they also tell unique stories about the "merging of ideas, cultures, and dreams" along the United States-Mexico border.
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Lament of the Images
Practitioner:
Alfredo Jaar
Date:
Jan 1 2002
You enter a narrow corridor where backlit Plexiglas panels offer three compelling narratives about whiteness and blindness: Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment and hard labor in Robben Island’s limestone quarry under a blinding sun; Bill Gates’ purchase of the Bettmann and United Press International archives, consisting of 17 million images, and their subsequent burial deep underground in a limestone vault for the sake of preservation, after Gates’s company C
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Seniors Don Johnnies to Expose Medicare Coverage Issue
Practitioner:
Massachusetts Senior Action Council
Date:
Sep 20 2021
Senior activists clad in hospital gowns crowded the State House steps Monday and parted their johnnies to expose false rubber buttocks -- in the hopes of drawing attention to a "gap" in health care assistance for low-income seniors. The Massachusetts Senior Action Council organized the rally to push for expanding eligibility for the Medicare Savings Program, which helps seniors pay Medicare premiums and other expenses.
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Movimiento de los indignados( MADRID 15m)
Practitioner:
ciudadanos, estudiantes
Date:
Nov 30 2010
El movimiento 15M fue formado por una series de protestas apartidistas con la intención de promover la democracia y la voz de las masas. Las asambleas se organizaron en plazas centrales en Madrid. A sus inicios, las protestas fueron organizadas por estudiantes reaccionando a las tazas crecientes universitarias y a los recortes presupuestarios educativos.
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Dyke Action Machine!
Practitioner:
Carrie Moyer & Sue Schaffner
Date:
Jan 1 1999
Taken from the website: Dyke Action Machine! (DAM!) is a two-person public art project founded in 1991 by artist Carrie Moyer and photographer Sue Schaffner. Between 1991 and 2004 DAM! blitzed the streets of New York City with public art projects that combined Madison Avenue savvy with Situationist tactics.
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Self Portraits of Zanele Muholi
Practitioner:
Zanele Muholi
Date:
Jul 25 2022
Zanele Muholi, the self-proclaimed visual activist and photographer, investigates the fraught relationship between post-apartheid South Africa and its queer community, who, despite being constitutionally protected since 1996, remain a constant target of abuse and discrimination.
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Calling Big Brands of Soda
Practitioner:
GreenPeaceUSA
Date:
Apr 5 2021
"This is the video that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé don’t want you to see. The big brands want you to believe they are taking steps to reduce single-use plastic BUT they are actually working hand in hand with the fossil fuel industry to produce even MORE! Watch now to learn that the actual “Story of the Bottle” has devastating effects on our health, planet, and communities!
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The Artists Representing Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria
Practitioner:
Focus on Puerto Rico residency
Date:
Jan 18 2018
Six months before Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc in the Caribbean, a group of Puerto Rican artists were invited to participate in a residency program in Miami by local art organizations. The artists were offered abandoned storefronts-turned-studios at a historic downtown mall, where they’d exhibit their work during Miami Art Week in December to engage an art world that often overlooks the island territory.
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Organization Fighting Against Street Harassment Through Sidewalk Chalk
Practitioner:
Catcalls of NYC
Date:
Mar 28 2016
Catcalls of NYC is an organization that uses Instagram and everyday intervention as a platform of raising awareness about street sexual harassment. The group receives direct messages from people who have been catcalled on the street. The group goes to the location of the harassment and writes the catcall on the sidewalk in chalk. The Instagram account CatcallsofNYC then posts on their account a picture of the chalk writing.
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Degrees of My Deaf Rage
Practitioner:
Christine Sun Kim
Date:
Sep 8 2018
Christine Sun Kim's series Degrees of My Deaf Rage is a series of charcoal drawings of charts that depict the artist's varying degrees of what she calls "deaf rage." These frustrations are categorized by situations: deaf rage in the art world. institutional deaf rage, deaf rage concerning interpreters, deaf rage while traveling, deaf rage within educational settings, deaf rage in everyday situations.
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Syrian Artists Set Guinness Record By Building World's Largest Mural Out Of Recycled Goods
Practitioner:
Syrian artists
Date:
Mar 31 2014
A group of Syrian artists in Damascus has created the world's biggest mural made of recycled materials, a rare work aimed at brightening public space in a city sapped by war and sanctions. The brightly coloured, 720-sq metre work was constructed from aluminum cans, broken mirrors, bicycle wheels and other scrap objects and displayed on a street outside a primary school in the centre of the Syrian capital.
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How Mexico Formed A United National Identity Through Art
Practitioner:
Mexican Artists
Date:
Oct 4 2016
"Beginning in 1910, the Mexican Revolution spawned a cultural renaissance, inspiring artists to look inward in search of a specifically Mexican artistic language. This visual vocabulary was designed to transcend the realm of the arts and give a national identity to this population undergoing transition.
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25 Years Ago, Rage Against the Machine Whipped Their Dicks Out in Protest
Practitioner:
Rage Against the Machine
Date:
Jul 18 1993
When Rage Against the Machine arrived in Philadelphia to play their 15-minute set as part of Lollapalooza ’93, the Los Angeles band knew they had a problem. Zack de la Rocha, the band’s incendiary frontman who was as outspoken on the mic as he was loud in his cadence, had no voice. A month of playing shows on a tour to support their self-titled debut album released the previous November had taken its toll on the frontman’s vocal cords.
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Free Subway Ride
Practitioner:
Occupy Wall Street
Date:
Mar 28 2012
Wednesday's Free Subway Ride? That Was Occupy Wall Street
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Musicals for Change
Practitioner:
Diane Beckstead
Date:
Jan 1 2008
Musicals for Change is a project aimed at educating elementary children to be active participants in the world through theater. Written by Diane Beckstead, these musicals promote uplifting messages about the importance of community, the arts, and helping each other, while raising support for worthy causes.
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The New Activism of Japan's Youth
Practitioner:
Date:
Aug 20 2009
Young Japan: For too long, Japan's youth have been a silent minority. Now, on the eve of a crucially important general election, they seek a bigger voice in forging the future of their aging nation
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Czechoslovakia’s two-hour general strike
Practitioner:
Czechoslovaks
Date:
Apr 30 2012
A general strike can be one of the most potent noncooperation methods in the repertoire of nonviolent resistance. It is a widespread cessation of labor in an effort to bring all economic activity to a total standstill. Although it is easy to broadcast the call for a general strike, it is exceedingly difficult to implement for the maximal impact that it potentially exerts. What’s more, a general strike must
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