If you're a bibliophile you'll get a kick out of the car-turned-library that can be found in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Artist Raul Lemesoff took an old 1979 Ford Falcon, a popular mode of transport amongst the military forces of its time, and transformed it into a mobile library shaped like a tank.
"The Uni Project aims to do one thing and do it well: temporarily
transform almost any available urban space into a public reading room
and venue for learning. We start with the conviction that books and
learning should be prominent, accessible, and part of what we expect at
street-level in our cities." (From site.)
Rescue workers have swung into action to board, feed and treat displaced animals – and find those who may be trapped.
As the wildfires besieged Los Angeles, marauding through hillside suburbs at an impossibly fast and ferocious pace, 500 miles away Garrett Needles and the volunteers with the North Valley Animal Disaster Group started making plans.
For third world artists who are forced into exile, the creativity process could be greatly challenged due to displacement in language, community and history. Many filmmakers in exile tend to look at their connection to the homeland in strictly political terms, or give up making films overall.
What is it like living with AIDS? This heart-wrenching video for South Africa’s Topsy Foundation brings us through 90 hard days in the life of someone living with it. Be sure to watch it all the way to the end. It’s worth it:
Did you catch that? If you didn’t, watch it again. Spoiler after the jump.
In March 1939, a 23-year-old Billie Holiday walked up to the mic at West 4th's Cafe Society in New York City to sing her final song of the night. Per her request, the waiters stopped serving and the room went completely black, save for a spotlight on her face.
PARIS — At the end of the Dior fashion shown in Paris last September, a woman got up from the audience and walked down the runway carrying a yellow banner painted with the words “We Are All Fashion Victims.”
Mending Baghdad is a four-and-a-half-by-six-and-a-half-foot quilt memorializing Baghdad as it looked during the American bombing on the first nights of the Iraq war. The purpose of the project is to bring people together to do something symbolically curative for Iraq. The artist, Clare Wainwright, worked up the image in about two days, but left it deliberately unfinished.
Real estate agents and investors with plans to visit an open house in San Francisco Tuesday were greeted with a somewhat unexpected scene – a motley crew of Mission activists and neighborhood characters holding signs and singing, “If you buy this house, you will have bad karma.” A small brass band played along.
A young man melting into a puddle of himself is something you don’t see everyday, much less in a busy public square. Yet this humourous but surprisingly effective spectacle is the latest effort by the Red Cross of Argentina to raise awareness about climate change.
“Nude” and “vulnerable” aren’t words commonly used to describe Arab males. But that’s how Tamara Abdul Hadi pictures them—literally—in the project Picture an Arab Man. With the goal of breaking the stereotype of Arab men as violent and dangerous, Abdul Hadi has traveled during the past three years to countries including Egypt, Palestine, and Yemen to photograph semi-naked men.
Action as a response to viral video of Attorney Aaron Schlossberg's racist rant against Spanish speaking customers and employees at a midtown restaurant. The "Latin Party" included food, music, and dance celebrating Latina/o culture in the US.
From FB event page:
Students dressed as Israeli soldiers stopped other students, ordered them to the ground, and blindfolded them in a demonstration that drew multiple campus groups to a standoff on College Walk Thursday afternoon.
The Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine set up mock checkpoints—to resemble those manned by the Israeli army in the West Bank—drawing crowds and counter-protests for several hours.
When the U.S. government came after Anglea Davis, art came to her defense. Targeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as one of its “10 Most Wanted” in 1970, tracked down, jailed and accused of three capital crimes, artists and activists around the world rose to her defense. She would be found not guilty on all counts.
Through her work, South African art activist Athenkosi Kwinana aspires to deepen the understanding of Albinism in her native country, where she has faced discrimination in most aspects of her life from childhood days on. Working with both drawing and printmaking, Kwinana creates large self-portraits that aim to constructively reimagine the representation of Albinism in the country’s black communities and African contemporary art as whole.
For artists exploring themes of violence towards humans and animals, there is a fine line between thoughtfully engaging and needlessly shocking the viewer; being sensationally explicit can turn people away while being tacit or innocuous may fail to make an impact.
Filmed in Harlem, New York, and in Claude Monet's gardens in Giverny, France, THE GIVERNY SUITE is a cinematic poem that advocates for the safety and bodily autonomy of Black women. Employing techniques including hand-painted film animation and montage editing, Gary first developed the work during an artist residency in Giverny, where the gardens offered a space of respite.
Sirens of the Lambs
By Banksy
A slaughterhouse delivery truck touring the meatpacking district and then citywide for the next two weeks.
http://www.banksyny.com/#
Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIz7mEJOeA
Sunaura Taylor is an artist, writer and activist. Through painting, printmaking, writing and other forms of political and artistic engagement her work intervenes with dominant historical narratives of disability and animal oppression. Taylor's artworks have been exhibited at venues across the country, including the CUE Art Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution and the Berkeley Art Museum.
Parió Paula is an all women’s percussion group based in Lima, Peru. These women are truly artistic renegades defying the social norms of Lima’s predominantly male music scene. With a bold message on emphasizing female expression, these ladies have transformed their countless styles of drumming into something effective for their city.
(see full article and short documentary at link below)