Main Gallery

Under the Influence
Practitioner:
Bryan Lewis Saunders
Date:
Mar 1 2013
Artist Bryan Lewis Saunders took it upon himself to draw a self portrait every time he took a psychoactive substance. These ranged from zoloft to morphine to marijuana and it is an amazing subjective experience to witness. We can almost get a taste of what each drug must feel like on the inside, at least to Saunders, and an experiment like this raises some important questions like what are drugs and what place do they have in society?
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A Vote for the Future
Practitioner:
15 M activista
Date:
May 15 2011
The 15M movement in Spain grew out of a desire for liberation and greater access to social and political rights for marginalized groups. At its core the activists of 15M were visionaries and used voting for a utopian society as a creative act to reimagine the world they created. Reality is socially construed by the forces that determine individual agency.
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Professor tracks rise in racism linked to pandemic
Practitioner:
Russell Jeung, San Francisco State, the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON) and Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA)
Date:
Mar 19 2020
Research from Professor and Chair of Asian American Studies Russell Jeung spurs launch of online reporting center to document COVID-19 discrimination.
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Nikeplatz
Practitioner:
Coachella Valley
Date:
Sep 1 2003
In September 2003 the news went out nationwide: Karlsplatz, one of Vienna's main squares, is soon to be renamed Nikeplatz. Apart from the new name, it appears that a huge monument in the shape of Nike's famous "Swoosh" logo will be built in Nikeplatz. Needless to say, it is all fake.
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Climate Name Change
Practitioner:
Barton Graf Agency
Date:
Sep 1 2014
To bring attention to the widespread apathy toward climate change, nonprofit group 350action and agency Barton F. Graf 9000 got a little personal. Tapping into the meteorological legacy of naming hurricanes after people–thereby marring the good names of unsuspecting Sandys, Irenes and Katrinas everywhere–“Climate Name Change” told the same storm story, but subbed in the name of prominent politicians who refuse to acknowledge climate change.
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Protests in Belfast and Dublin after rugby players' rape acquittal
Practitioner:
public
Date:
Mar 29 2018
Protests have been held in cities on either side of the Irish border after two Ireland rugby internationals were acquitted of rape. Up to 1,000 people took part in a demonstration in Belfast on Thursday after a jury’s unanimous verdicts on Wednesday in the case of Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, who were accused of raping a woman in June 2016.
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Bringing Art and Change to Bronx
Practitioner:
Thomas Hirschhorn
Date:
Sep 15 2013
New York Times By Randy Kennedy
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Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet
Practitioner:
Cool Globes
Date:
Jun 1 2006
A public art exhibition designed to raise awareness of solutions to climate change. Cool Globes grew out of a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005, and was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 2006. Since that time, Cool Globes premiered in Chicago and went on tour across the country from Washington DC to San Francisco, San Diego, Sundance, Los Angeles, Houston and Cleveland.
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"Yes I'm Hot of This" Explores the Experience of Muslim American Women One Panel at a Time
Practitioner:
Huda Fahmy, Adams Media
Date:
Dec 11 2018
Comic artist Huda Fahmy has been breaking down walls with her hilarious comic "Yes, I'm Hot in This." In her own words, "What started as my therapeutic way of dealing with the Islamophobia and prejudice I encounter on the daily has now turned into this amazing opportunity to tell the story of the American hijabi."
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A small group forces PNC to stop financing mountaintop removal
Practitioner:
Earth Quaker Action Team
Date:
Mar 2 2015
This wonderful campaign of Earth Action Network against mountaintop removal coal mining focused not on the invulnerable mining companies, but on the banks that financed them - and especially PNC, which based its growth model on recruiting university students. It stopped both PNC and then, because of that, ALL banks from financing mountaintop removal coal mining.
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Marcela Cantuária: The South American Dream
Practitioner:
Marcela Cantuária
Date:
Mar 23 2023
The work of Marcela Cantuária (b. 1991, Rio de Janeiro; lives in Rio de Janeiro) often portrays female figures who navigate regional, international, and social boundaries. Often highlighting symbols from tarot and astrology as well as themes that reflect political and environmental activism in Latin America, she weaves narratives of social spheres, political associations, and ethereal wishes.
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Max Factor 26 billboard improvement campaign launches the Billboard Liberation Front
Practitioner:
Billboard Liberation Front
Date:
Dec 1 1977
For 35 years, the Billboard Liberation Front have been altering public advertisements in San Francisco under the cover of night, strategically changing words or phrases to invert the intended message of corporate sponsors. Considering their guerrilla reclamation of public space an "improvement of outdoor advertising," the BLF regards the advertisers whose billboards they improve as clients, for whom they are performing a vital service.
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Cheering Girls into STEM
Practitioner:
Science Cheerleader
Date:
Jan 30 2015
Despite the pushes to motivate more young girls into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields, women are still very underrepresented in almost every scientific field. Part of this motivation is because a lot of young girls would rather do something else.
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How to Disrupt the Financial Order with Humour, Creativity and a dose of Mischief.
Practitioner:
Leonidas Martin, Enmedio
Date:
Oct 12 2012
Enmedio member Leonidas Martín at Creativetime 2012 (New York). His presentation “How to Disrupt the Financial Order with Humour, Creativity and a Dose of Mischief” is priceless. Watch the video and laugh.
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Rolling Jubilee
Practitioner:
Strike Debt
Date:
Nov 1 2013
Across the United States, 2,693 people have received a letter in the last few months, which identified a debt and read: "You are no longer under any obligation to settle this account with the original creditor, the bill collector, or anyone else." This is the work of the Rolling Jubilee project – a non-profit initiative which buys personal debt for pennies on the dollar in the secondary market (where debt is sold to companies who then resell i
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Conscious Lee
Practitioner:
Bog Fingers, student group in MTU's Creativity and Change course
Date:
Apr 2 2021
Conscious Lee is a public awareness project to help people value and protect their rivers. Rivers are rich sources of life and are vital for clean water. They are beautiful spaces to connect with nature. We all need to appreciate our rivers. We can all help river wildlife and protect this natural amenity for future generations.
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Visible Trans
Practitioner:
Krisztina Kolos Orban, Transvanilla
Date:
Aug 9 2017
A set of interactive experiences at the Sziget festival in Budapest, aimed at social change to improve every day life of trans and gender-nonconforming persons.
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Chalk it up Day with Bubbles at NYU
Practitioner:
Date:
May 2 2014
Last Friday, on May 2nd of 2014, a group called The Student Debt Resistance @NYU hosted its first public engagement at Washington Square Park. The co-creators coined this event Chalk Day. The goal of this special day was to raise student awareness to the massive amounts of debt that they undertake as NYU students.
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The Sahmat Collective
Practitioner:
The Sahmat Collective
Date:
Jan 1 1989
In 1989, playwright, actor, and activist Safdar Hashmi was fatally attacked by political thugs while performing a street play outside of Delhi. His death led to the founding of Sahmat, an influential artist collective that has taken a consistent stance against the threats of religious fundamentalism and sectarianism in India through a vibrant mix of high art and street culture.
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Undersea Art Gallery That Ensnares Illegal Trawlers
Practitioner:
Paolo Fanciulli
Date:
Nov 15 2022
IT’S 7 AM, and a thin layer of mist still hovers over the harbor in Talamone as fisherman Paolo Fanciulli stretches out his nets. Pulling them out of a plastic tub, he examines them section by section, setting the ripped ones aside to be repaired. It’s a time-consuming process—one that’s occupied men from this tiny village on the coast of Tuscany for centuries.
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