Main Gallery

Ice Watch
Practitioner:
Olafur Eliasson
Date:
Feb 13 2018
From Public Delivery: For Ice Watch (2014), he extracted 30 blocks of glacial ice from the waters of Greenland and in 2018 strategically placed them in front of Tate Modern in London . The ice was left here to melt. Ice Watch was to inspire public action against climate change, advocating for a rapid public response.
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"Trading With The Enemy": Duke Riley's Pigeon Cuban Cigar Smugglers
Practitioner:
Duke Riley
Date:
Aug 1 2013
The smuggling of illicit cargo and people has played a significant role in shaping the culture as well as the economy of the southernmost american city of Key West since its foundation in 1821.
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Tibetan Activists Project Messages of Hope while the Empire State Building is Lit in Chinese Colors
Practitioner:
Students for Free Tibet
Date:
Oct 1 2009
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the communist takeover of China, Tibet activists projected messages of support for human rights and freedom from inside and outside of the Empire State Building, countering China’s public relations stunt to bathe the building in red and yellow light. “NY [Hearts] Human Rights” was projected from inside the ESB onto a nearby building.
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Life Pods
Practitioner:
Karl Mattson
Date:
Jan 25 2016
In Jan. 2016 Karl Mattson from Rolla, BC displayed some of his unique sculptures for exhibition at Lantern Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His 'Life Pods' are sculptures constructed using only found objects.Tools, metal fragments, debris, and fuel tanks are some of the components welded together forming both the solo pod, and the family size pod. The larger pieces were acquired near the pipeline embedding site near to his farm.
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Dance for George
Practitioner:
Sheen Jamaal, Alison Bedell
Date:
Jun 7 2020
When dancer Sheen Jamaal saw a video of protestors doing the Cupid Shuffle in New Jersey, inspiration struck to do something similar in New York. He immediately called his friend and collaborator Allison “Buttons” Bedell, and the seed for the Dance For George protest was planted.
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This Is Why Keith Haring Got Arrested Numerous Times
Practitioner:
Keith Haring
Date:
Jul 1 1982
In the early 1980s Keith Haring created hundreds of drawings in the New York subway system. He used chalk to paint on unused advertising space, which was covered with black sheets of paper. Haring was caught and fined numerous times.
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Napalming a Dog!?
Practitioner:
Kiyoshi Kuroma, Bill Arthrell
Date:
Apr 10 1968
In 1968, with the US war against Vietnam raging, anti-war veterans and the anti-war movement as a whole in the US increasingly put the spotlight on the US use of napalm. Napalm is burning jellied gasoline dropped on humans engineered to stick to skin and cause horrible burns. According to the wikipedia page on napalm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm "388,000 tons of U.S.
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People React to Being Called Beautiful
Practitioner:
Shea Glover
Date:
Dec 4 2015
Shea Glover, age 18, began a senior project that became an activist/social campaign. Shea approached people throughout her high school and asked them if they would pose for her senior project. To each person she would say, I'm taking pictures of things I find beautiful". Recording the entire encounter revealed the diverse reactions of each student and teacher. Some erupted with laughter, others a huge grin, while some embarrassment.
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Just Fashion: Critical Cases on Social Justice and Fashion
Practitioner:
Otto Von Busch, Parsons-New School, Self Passage
Date:
Nov 23 2012
Over the course of a semester, fashion hactivist and fashion social justice scholar, Otto Von Busch, facilitated a course on "Critical Fashion and Social Justice," where graduate fashion students at Parsons design school researched, contextualized and at times critiqued case studies on various examples of "fashion social justice." Case studies included traditional fair trade companies and non profit organizations that have used fashi
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Mining the Museum
Practitioner:
Fred Wilson
Date:
Apr 3 1993
Wilson’s intervention was a correction of the museum’s identity in the sense that it made the underlying racism apparent. Using glass cases and neat labeling, Wilson’s installations mimicked the usual methods of museum display but with a twist so that a new voice or persona was created. As he said it himself: “By bringing things out of storage and shifting things already on view, I believe I created a new public persona for the historical society.”
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The Georgian artists at the forefront of anti-government protests
Practitioner:
Georgian Artists
Date:
Mar 1 2023
The Georgian government’s attempt in March to impose a repressive Russian-style “foreign agent” law has galvanised the cultural community in the country. Museum workers and artists have been at the forefront of dramatic protests during which police fired water cannons at crowds waving European Union flags, and say they plan to continue the battle despite the government backing down from the legislation.
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This Artist Captured the Non-Stop Flow of Plastic Pollution
Practitioner:
Benjamin Von Wong
Date:
Oct 14 2021
Benjamin Von Wong’s latest art-as-activism installation looks like something Photoshopped onto reality. A large brass-looking faucet, suspended in the air, pours a river of plastic out of its spout.
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Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund
Practitioner:
NATIONAL COMPASSION FUND
Date:
May 14 2022
On May 14, 2022, the Buffalo community suffered a devastating act of violence when a gunman opened fire at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue, killing ten people and wounding three. Many have asked how to help. In partnership with Tops, the National Compassion Fund has established the Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund to provide direct financial assistance to the survivors of the deceased and those directly affected by this tragedy.
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the Fundred Project
Practitioner:
Mel Chin
Date:
Jan 1 2008
The Fundred Dollar Bill Project, initiated by artist Mel Chin, is a collaborative art project aimed at raising awareness and mobilizing action against the environmental and health threat of lead contamination. It encourages individuals to create their own unique interpretations of $100 bills, symbolizing the value of human lives and the need for a lead-free future.
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Putting LSD in Chicago's water supply
Practitioner:
Paul Krassner and the Yippies
Date:
Aug 20 1968
As the Yippies prepared for protests at 1968 Democratic National Convention, Yippie Paul Krassner rattled Chicago leaders by suggesting that the Yippies were planning to put LSD in the city water supply. As Abbie Hoffman said at the Chicago Seven trial: "I read in the paper the day before that they had 2,000 troops surrounding the reservoirs in order to protect against the Yippie plot to dump LSD in the drinking water.
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Yellow pigs
Practitioner:
Jobless Brotherhood
Date:
Apr 8 2015
In February , two leaders of a guerrilla movement here traveled to the financial district carrying a wooden container that contained three pigs, each painted yellow from snout to tail.
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Quac: el Noticero (Quac the newletter)
Practitioner:
Jaime Garzon
Date:
May 13 1995
From 1995 to 1997, Colombian families reunited in front of the TV to watch Quac: El Noticero, a comedy newletter performed by the comedian Jaime Garzon and the actor Diego Leon Hoyos. It has been the only space in which the Colombian society was allowed to see a well made newsletter about the reality of the country and their politicians from a comedy perspective.
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World Comics Network
Practitioner:
Sharad Sharma
Date:
Jan 1 2002
With World Comics India, the organization he started, Sharad has pioneered a cheap and easy medium for poor people to communicate meaningfully on issues that are neglected by the conventional media. While the urban elite dominates public media, the grinding day-to-day concerns of millions are rarely heard. Layers of discrimination and abuse heaped on huge numbers of people keep their problems out of sight and out of mind.
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Habla, pueblo, habla: Advertising techniques for (a sort of) political change
Practitioner:
Radiotelevisión Española
Date:
Dec 15 1976
On Wednesday, December 15th 1976, a referendum was held in Spain. The question was to pass or not to pass the Ley para la Reforma Política (Political Reform Act). This Act was the legal instrument that allowed Spain to transition between Francisco Franco’s dictatorship to a democratic constitutional regime, a parliamentary monarchy.
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Turkey Erdogan: Women rise up over withdrawal from Istanbul Convention
Practitioner:
Feminists in Turkey
Date:
Mar 28 2021
It has been a tumultuous and anxious week for women in Turkey. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree at midnight last Friday, annulling Turkey's ratification of the Istanbul Convention on violence against women, women poured onto the streets of Turkish cities to protest. Further demonstrations are planned.
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