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The Dark Side of Creative Activism - Sudanese Refugees in Tel Aviv
Practitioner:
Michael Ben-Ari and Itamar Ben-Gvir
Date:
Jun 12 2011
Unfortunately, those who struggle for a more equal and democratic society are not the only ones who can make use of creative forms of activism. The following example shows how creative strategies can also be employed by those who have less wholesome intentions in mind.
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Sweatshop A Dark Comedic Game on Offshore Manafacturing
Practitioner:
Channel 4 Education and Littleloud
Date:
Jul 17 2011
From the Games for Change website:
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Hamilton
Practitioner:
Lin Manuel Miranda
Date:
Aug 6 2015
‘‘HAMILTON,’’ the new musical biography of Alexander Hamilton created by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, kicks off with a doozy of a question. The houselights rise on Aaron Burr, the third vice president of the United States and, infamously, the killer of Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Burr steps to center stage and reels off several lines of verse:
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GIMME THE POWER
Practitioner:
MOLOTOV
Date:
May 9 2012
Directed by Fernando Sariñana, Todo el poder centers around the politics and corruption that shroud the Mexican police system. Featuring Demián Bichir as Gabriel, a filmmaker whose career has left him assaulted and robbed in broad daylight more times than he cares to remember, the film itself was inspired by Sariñana's personal experience with urban crime oftentimes perpetrated by the police themselves. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
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La Colifata
Practitioner:
Borda Mental Health Institution
Date:
Feb 4 1990
More than 20 years ago, a psychology student doing his training at one of Argentina's oldest psychiatric wards kept being asked by his family and friends what it was like to work in there. So he came up with an idea: to let the patients explain in their own words. The first radio station to broadcast from inside a mental hospital was born.
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Hypothetical Development Organization
Practitioner:
Hypothetical Development Organization
Date:
Dec 1 2010
Members of this organization begin the narrative process by examining city neighborhoods and commercial districts for compelling structures that appear to have fallen into disuse —“hidden gems” of the built environment. In varying states of repair, these buildings suggest only stories about the past, not the future.
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Activism at the Met Gala
Practitioner:
Joe Gebbia, Yeonmi Park
Date:
May 1 2017
Now that the dust has settled from the Met Gala, with all the excitement over Kylie Jenner’s bathroom selfie and Rihanna’s body-swallowing Comme des Garçons florals, it is worth pausing to consider a red carpet moment most people missed: the entrance of Joe Gebbia, co-founder and chief product officer of Airbnb, with Yeonmi Park, a North Korean refugee and international refugee activist.
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Bogota Performance Piece - No Name
Practitioner:
Tania Bruguera
Date:
Nov 5 2009
Renowned Cuban artist Tania Bruguera surprised a Bogota audience in September when she lined up three people directly involved in the Colombian conflict for a chat. The real performance however, started when a waitress emerged with a tray of neatly organised lines of cocaine, and began offering them to members of the audience.
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Bailando en el banco
Practitioner:
FLO6x8
Date:
Oct 22 2010
Unas clientas esperan tranquilamente en un banco, cuando empieza a sonar una extraña canción en el hilo musical. Una clienta se sale de la cola y comienza a bailar con brío flamenco, y sorprendentemente el resto de clientes se le unen en una compleja coreografía con mucho desparpajo.
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The Domestic Violence Milk Carton Project
Practitioner:
Peggy Diggs
Date:
Jan 2 1992
Peggy Digg’s The Domestic Violence Milk Carton Project consisted of an image printed by Tuscan Dairy Farms on over one million milk cartons, which were distributed during January and February of 1992 throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. This wide-reaching project sought to both raise awareness of domestic violence and distribute a helpline.
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They're Going To Kill Me
Practitioner:
Jammie Holmes
Date:
May 30 2020
The Black, Dallas-based artist Jammie Holmes put George Floyd’s final words in a place where everyone could see them: the sky. Five days after Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, May 30th, Holmes’s piece took flight across Detroit, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. Airplanes carrying banners flew between the hours of 11:30 a.m. and 9 p.m. EDT.
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“Herstory” is the first comprehensive New York museum survey of work by Judy Chicago
Practitioner:
Judy Chicago
Date:
Oct 12 2023
“Judy Chicago: Herstory” will span Judy Chicago’s sixty-year career to encompass the full breadth of the artist’s contributions across painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, textiles, photography, stained glass, needlework, and printmaking. Expanding the boundaries of a traditional museum survey, the exhibition will place six decades of Chicago’s work in dialogue with work by other women across centuries in a unique Fourth Floor installation.
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The Last American Indian On Earth
Practitioner:
Gregg Deal
Date:
Apr 17 2013
"The Last American Indian on Earth", a performance art piece by Gregg Deal,a member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe originally based in northwestern Nevada.The project documents what happens when an unsuspecting public is confronted with the flesh-and-blood version of a stereotype, one that for most is the only authentic expression of what it means to be an Indigenous person of the American continent.
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SWORN OATH
Practitioner:
Patrick Henderson
Date:
Apr 25 2018
Fuck. Damn. Shit. Ass. Everybody curses. Don’t say you don’t. Everyone does it when they’re mad, upset, happy, or excited. It’s human nature. Is it that the words are sinful? Offensive? Violent? Nobody really knows but we as a society do not like them in the slightest. People associate cursing with a stigma of being uneducated, uncultured, and lazy. But boiled down, language is one of the strongest tools and assets that we have. Language is power.
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China's Vacuum-Cleaner Artist Turning Beijing's Smog into Bricks
Practitioner:
Nut Brother
Date:
Dec 1 2015
Beijing and the rest of cities in northern China suffer from years of smog pollution.The beige-gray miasma of smog brings coughs and rasping. Hospitals are crowded from respiratory ailments and a midday sky is so dim. But “Brother Nut(坚果兄弟)“, a performance artist, has something solid to show from the acrid soup in the air: a brick of condensed pollution.
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Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ Is Still Revolutionary
Practitioner:
Lady Gaga
Date:
Feb 11 2021
Lady Gaga said something interesting about her song “Born This Way” during a March 2011 interview at Google headquarters. “What's so funny [is] when I put that song out, everybody was like, ‘Oh, the lyrics are so literal,’ and I'm like, ‘Yeah,’” she shared, almost with a fuck-you cadence. She wasn't angry—but you could tell how important the track was to her, and how she didn't want its message muddled.
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Activists Illustrated - Women at the Heart of Global Struggles
Practitioner:
María María Acha-Kutscher
Date:
Jul 8 2015
Latin American Artist María María Acha-Kutscher takes photographs from social and feminist movements and turns them into stunning pop art illustrations.
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Two young Black Chicago women are using art and activism to change narratives about Black communities
Practitioner:
Another Life
Date:
Jul 31 2017
Both Johnson and Lewis recognize that the personal is political, and vice versa. By making connections between storytelling and activism, the two young women are using creative approaches to achieving justice and equity.
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HANGING KLANSMEN ART INSTALLATION STUNS RICHMOND COMMUNITY
Practitioner:
Indecline
Date:
Sep 8 2017
A Richmond, VA.-based activist group called Indecline has recently installed a street art resistance installation of several hung clown figures dressed like the KKK from a tree in Richmond’s Bryan Park.
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Gesta Final
Practitioner:
Cuban Government
Date:
Apr 8 2013
HAVANA — It’s the latest challenge for computer gamers, in Cuba at least: Fight your way through mangrove swamps shoulder-to-shoulder with bearded guerrillas clad in the olive green of Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Your mission: Topple 1950s dictator Fulgencio Batista.
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