Main Gallery

Thousands of Shoes Honor Hurricane Maria’s Victims in San Juan
Practitioner:
Rafael Acevedo, Puerto Rican citizens
Date:
Jun 1 2018
Walking the rows of shoes—favorite slippers, old Army boots, gold stilettos—it’s the baby shoes that stop you cold. Shoes began to fill a plaza opposite Puerto Rico’s Capitol building, and by Sunday morning, there were more than 3,000 pairs, a growing memorial to the roughly 4,645 people estimated to have died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
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Department of Invitations
Practitioner:
Ebba Akerman
Date:
Jul 31 2014
Filling Stomachs to Open Minds on Immigration In Sweden, Dinners Melt Cultural Barriers STOCKHOLM — Last year, when Ebba Akerman, 31, was teaching Swedish to immigrants in the suburbs of this city, she ran into one of her students on the train and asked him whether he enjoyed living in her country.
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Trans Murder Monitoring
Practitioner:
Trans Day of Remembrance Campaign
Date:
Oct 12 2015
As part of an international workshop (10-11 October 2015) with the Center for Artistic Activism, 17 trans activists and artists from 13 European countries developed a creative campaign to mark some of the spaces in Berlin which have symbolic significance for trans people.
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Barbie Liberation Organization
Practitioner:
Barbie Liberation Organization
Date:
Dec 25 1993
On Christmas day in 1993, kids were finding more than they bargained for under their trees: Mattel’s new talking Barbie dolls growled “Dead men tell no lies,” while Hasbro’s macho GI Joe’s chirped “I love to shop with you.”
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Hundreds Gather at Utah Capitol in Protest of New Transgender Rights Related Bills
Practitioner:
House Health and Human Services Committee, Equality Utah, Human Rights Commission, American Civil Liberties Union
Date:
Jan 25 2022
Lawmakers in a Utah House committee soundly rejected a bill that would have penalized doctors for giving gender-affirming health care to minors, then moments later approved legislation that included similar restrictions on transgender health care — minus the punishment — on party line during a lengthy committee meeting Tuesday.
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Horas por la educación, Hours for education
Practitioner:
Chilean students
Date:
Jun 13 2011
Chilean students ran for 1,800 consecutive hours around Chile's presidential palace, La Moneda, from June 13 to August 27, 2011 to protest the cost of education. The 1,800 hours stand for the 1,800,000,000 Chilean pesos, or approximately US$4 million which would cover the cost of higher education for 300,000 students. They carried Chilean flags and signs with "Free Education Now" written on them.
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Concrete Creek
Practitioner:
Shai Zakai
Date:
Mar 24 2001
Utilizing excess construction cement that was being dumped into a creek near Beit Shemesh, Israel, Shai Zakai harnessed the unclaimed cement to create an art installation that brought awareness to the ongoing pollution. The project was entitled, 'Concrete Creek' aimed to bring the community closer to their environment. Zakai installed cement flags and set them among the river.
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Walden, A Game
Practitioner:
Tracy J. Fullerton
Date:
Feb 27 2017
It’s certainly a long way from Grand Theft Auto. Henry David Thoreau’s classic “Walden” is the inspiration for what Smithsonian Magazine is calling “the world’s most improbable video game”: Walden, a Game.
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Man at the Crossroads
Practitioner:
Diego Rivera
Date:
Feb 19 1934
In 1932, Rivera was commissioned by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and her husband John D. Rockefeller Jr. to paint a mural for the lobby of Rockefeller Center. Rivera kept the original, approved plan for the two outer sides of the mural but changed the inner panel to include a critique capitalism. This inner panel ultimately included: Lenin, prostitutes, and the upper class drinking alcohol and covered in signs of venereal disease.
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Women to the Front: Perspectives on Equality, Gender, and Activism
Practitioner:
Nancy Rivera, Scotty Hill, Salt Lake City Arts Council
Date:
Mar 16 2020
Women to the Front: Perspectives on Equality, Gender, and Activism is an exhibit that showcases 15 female artists with ties to Utah who infuse their art with activism. The exhibit commemorates the centennial of the 19th Amendment and the 150th anniversary of the first vote cast by a woman in Utah.
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My Calling (Card) #1 Meta-Performance (1987-88; 00:58:00)
Practitioner:
Adrian Piper
Date:
Jan 30 1987
Adrian Piper created 'calling cards' that can stand alone as individual works, but Piper also used them in performances.
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Angered by Unsafe City, Gurgaon Women Call for a ‘Girlcott’
Practitioner:
Gurgaon Girlcott
Date:
Apr 4 2012
India Ink [Blog] The New York Times Global Edition April 4, 2012 By Neha Thirani The women of Gurgaon, angered by the recent incidents of violent crimes against women in the outsourcing boom town, are calling for a “Girlcott.”
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‘Not Yours’
Practitioner:
Beata Kruszynski
Date:
May 1 0000
“My image was inspired by the #MeToo Revolution, my personal experiences with the male gaze and a healthy amount of frustration and repulsion. What I hope to convey in this image is the sense of verbal, physical and energetic male ownership that is placed on women in society.” — Beata Kruszynski is a freelance illustrator and art teacher in Ontario, Canada.
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Mueller Report Graphic Novel
Practitioner:
Barbara Slate
Date:
May 1 2019
The Mueller Report, important as it is, has not been read by most Americans. While perhaps written in more accessible language than other federal reports, there have been efforts to bring it into other formats: audio books, performances, and The Mueller Report presented in graphic novel form by Barbara Slate.
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Women Circles for Development in Uganda
Practitioner:
Women And Children's Empowerment Network in Africa
Date:
Jan 24 2015
WACENA, was established in the year 2008 by a number of concerned mothers together with women students from Makerere University Kampala with a purpose of addressing and alleviating the acute and long-term consequences of violence against the women and children of Uganda.
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In ‘Faith Ringgold: American People’ at the MCA, an African American artist’s decades of work get their due
Practitioner:
Faith Ringgold
Date:
Dec 20 2023
Faith Ringgold, the 93-year-old doyenne of African American art, a trailblazing master who foreshadowed the recent rise of art activism and Black figuration, is having her first solo museum show in Chicago.
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H&M Ad-busting
Practitioner:
Daniel Soares
Date:
Jan 1 2014
Artist Daniel Soares pasted Photoshop toolbar stickers on these H&M posters as a nice little reminder that not all is as it seems. Y'all know how Photoshop messes with our perception of beauty, and I think this is a smart little stunt to snap us back into reality when we start to wonder why we never look like the girls on the posters we walk past every day.
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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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This area will be photographed
Practitioner:
Laura Napier
Date:
Oct 11 2015
"This area will be photographed" is a public performance of implied photographic consent, inspired by Google's street view and satellite surveillance. Posted signs and handbills alerted the public present in Union Square, New York, NY that a photograph would be taken of the area at a precise time.
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Joseph Beuys, Coyote: I like America and America Likes Me, May 1974
Practitioner:
Joseph Beuys
Date:
Mar 1 1974
It was 1974 when Beuys arrived in New York City, ready to tackle a whole new challenge and create what was to become one of the most famous works of art of the time. Upon arrival, his assistants wrapped him in a large piece of felt and transported him, by ambulance, to the René Block Gallery in SoHo. There, awaiting the artist, was a live coyote. Beuys spent three consecutive days, eight hours at a time, locked up with the wild animal.
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