At noon today, a group of artists and activists including members of the Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (known as G.U.L.F.) unfurled a large parachute in the atrium of the Guggenheim Museum, demanding to meet with a member of the institution’s board of trustees to discuss the labor conditions at its Abu Dhabi site.
The beacon flashed incessantly. On. Off. On again.
Like some sort of traffic light gone crazy, it pierced the thick nighttime mist hovering over San Francisco Bay. The light sent a message five miles across the dark waters from Ghirardelli Square to Alcatraz Island. There, cheers erupted as the light flashed the words, "Go Indians!"
The Spanish 15M/Indignados movement represents a citizen break-up with the current political system while proposing an alternative one, changing the prevailing participation patterns while transforming the cultural, social and political structures in the country.
Nobody expected the Spanish r-Evolution and there it goes; still advancing and strong.
Gum Election
Gum Election is a guerilla art project which started in New York City in October 2008. It encouraged people to vote during the presidential election in 2008 and also not to spit out their chewing gum carelessly on New York Cities already dirty streets. Now the Gum Election is back and New Yorkers are voting again “who’s sucking the most”.
"Around 30 people gathered on Victoria Island Monday morning to advocate for the return of the endangered American Eel to the Ottawa River.
The event mixed art with activism, with attendees carrying windsocks decorated to look like as eels as they marched to Parliament Hill.
The marquee creation was an 8.2-meter-long replica of an eel, which had to be carried by six walkers."
Project IMPACT is an 8-week leadership-through-storytelling workshop for teen survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. The goal of Project IMPACT is to introduce survivors to the idea that sharing their stories is a powerful advocacy tool that can impact the legislative process and work to combat sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.
Danish 26-year-old art student Nadia Plesner designed this T-shirt depicting a Darfurian child holding a Louis Vuitton handbag as commentary on global disparity as it relates to war, developing nations, commercialism, and media.
In 2006, the fashion house sued Plesner for her appropriation of their trademark. The case was subsequently dismissed.
From Variety:
YouTube launched a campaign with the hashtag #DearMe — encouraging users to upload “video letters” with advice to their younger selves, aimed at helping girls deal with problems — and within an hour it became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter both in the U.S. and worldwide.
Is it better for the environment if you buy a brand-new cotton T-shirt or a recycled one?
Well, it depends.
Recycling has apparent benefits, but the process shortens cotton fibres and so usually has to be mixed with some oil-based material to keep it from falling apart.
Such trade-offs make it tricky to figure out the real sustainability rating of clothes — but brands in Europe will soon have no choice.
In Cape Town, South Africa the design firms Design Indaba Trust and Thinking have teamed up with artist Faith47 to help raise funds to bring more light to their urban city. Their goal is to raise funds to light up 700 meters of Manwabisi Park, which will ultimately reduce the crime rate in the area through more light. In order to get the community involved in the project, they have combined street art with community engagement.
An oversized facsimile of Rush poppers, tipped over, pouring out its viscous contents: this example of underground gay iconography blown up to almost belligerent proportions perfectly represents the aims of Party Out of Bounds: Nightlife as Activism Since 1980, a new exhibition at La MaMa’s La Galleria. The group show, curated by Emily Colucci and Osman Can Yerebakan, gathers together works by a small yet distinct menagerie of queer artists.
Acting on a tip from a disgruntled neighbor, two comedians dressed as drag queens confronted parking officers in broad daylight.
The pair wanted to know why the officers, who so ruthlessly enforced parking limits, had never so much as given a warning to the local fruit salesman, whose battered Ford Explorer sat illegally parked all day, every day, in the upper-class neighborhood of Polanco.
We set up a gazebo and table in a public park. The gazebo had two notice boards in the shape of trees where reflections were encouraged. We had a sign with the name of the action "Fall in Love With Nature" painted upon it. On the table were resource lists for the public to take away with links to books and websites on the topic of forest bathing and connecting with nature.
"A week-long party characterizes Brazil’s Carnival, the Mardi Gras of the southern hemisphere. Celebrations and parades are held throughout the country, most notably in the city of Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian states of Bahia and Pernambuco. Carnival celebrations vary in length and content, depending on the area.
These are called "anti-homeless spikes." They're about as friendly as they sound.
Photo courtesy of CC BY-ND, Immo Klink and Marco Godoy.
As you may have guessed, they're intended to deter people who are homeless from sitting or sleeping on that concrete step. And yeah, they're pretty awful.
Five leaders of British political parties called for dramatic action to confront climate change in a televised debate on Thursday, just two weeks before the country’s general election.
A melting ice sculpture stole the show.
“What Is Missing?” is a multi-sited memorial created by Maya Lin to raise awareness through science-based artworks about the present sixth mass extinction of species, connect this loss of species to habitat degradation and loss, and emphasize that by protecting and restoring habitat, we can both reduce carbon emissions and protect species.
order Crossers comprise a series of lightweight robotic sculptures that poetically explore the notion of borders and boundary conditions. The inflatable sculptures rise up to several stories high and extend across a given threshold. Their choreographed performance, originating on both sides of the border, would stage a symbolic connection.
The #LikeAGirl campaign was aired as a commercial during the 2015 SuperBowl. In the commercial, young girls were asked to act out certain phrases. They were told to "fight like girl", "throw a ball like a girl", "run like and girl", and so on. As an adolescent or an adult, these phrases carry a negative connotation. Girls are seen as weak, frilly, and inferior.