Projects tagged "Shifts (culture)"

Shifts the cultural landscape in order to imagine and enable change.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Practitioner:
Prophet Bobby Henderson
Date:
Jun 10 2005
In the mid early 2000s, religious advocates tried a new strategy: promoting the theory of “intelligent design” to be taught in schools. As the Kansas School Board considered the argument, Prophet Bobby Henderson saw an opportunity. His now famous, “Open Letter to the Kansas School Board” began:
Iranian Women of Graphic Design
Practitioner:
Iranian Women Of Graphic Design
Date:
Dec 9 2022
Platform ‘Iranian Women of Graphic Design’ share open-access protest posters to amplify #WomenLifeFreedom movement—triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini—in Iran and beyond.
Guerilla Girls, Do Women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?, 1989
Practitioner:
Guerilla Girls
Date:
Jan 1 1989
The Guerilla Girls are a group of feminist activist artists, who use facts, humor, and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias and corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture in their artworks. In 1989, they designed this billboard for the Public Art Fund (PAF) in New York, aimed to criticize the museum institutions for under-representing female artists and objectifying women.
Dad Writes Anti-Sexism Timewarp Letter to Daughter's School
Practitioner:
Stephen Callaghan
Date:
Aug 12 2017
When the boys were sent on a field trip to a hardware store and girls went to get their hair done, this modern dad didn’t get mad, he got hilarious. He wrote a letter notifying the school that there was a rift in the time space continuum somewhere in the school and that his kids had been sent back to 1968. He requested that the administration fix the timewarp immediately. This kind of humor is a hallmark of creative nonviolence.
"Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?"
Practitioner:
Guerilla Girls
Date:
Sep 10 1989
National Museum of Women In the Arts: To maintain their anonymity, group members wear gorilla masks in public and adopt the names of historic women artists, such as Käthe Kollwitz and Frida Kahlo, as pseudonyms.
Healing Verse Poetry Hotline
Practitioner:
Trapeta B. Mayson
Date:
Jan 1 2021
Philadelphia poet laureate Trapeta B. Mayson launched the Healing Verse Philly Poetry Line (1-855-763-6792), a toll-free telephone line that offers callers a 90-second poem by a Philadelphia-connected poet. A new poem will be featured each Monday throughout 2021.
For Once, Don't Do It
Practitioner:
Nike
Date:
May 29 2020
Text by Seth Cohen - On Friday night, as U.S. television screens burned with images of peaceful protests turning violent, Nike released a new socially conscious ad calling on Americans to do something quite different than the brand’s usual call to “Just Do It.” Instead, one of the nation’s leading athletic apparel companies called on individuals to not turn their back on the painful issue of racism in the United States.
Act ii: COWBOY CARTER
Practitioner:
Beyonce
Date:
Mar 29 2024
Following her sensational first ablum dedicated to the Black queer community via house and dance music, act i: RENAISSANCE, Beyonce released act ii: COWBOY CARTER in late March . The album is speculated to have come from her 2017/2018 performance of "Daddy Issues" at the Country Music Awards with the Dixie Chicks where the artist felt "unwelcomed".
Calvin Klein, Mother's Day
Practitioner:
Calvin Klein
Date:
May 8 2022
Text by David Artavia - An ad from Calvin Klein on Mother's Day featuring a pregnant transgender man and his trans partner has sparked a wave of backlash on social media.
Suite Venitienne
Practitioner:
Sophie Calle
Date:
Jan 1 1979
Sophie Calle's works discuss the issue of "privacy", the composition of an individual's identity at the social level, and the relationship between "private" and "public/group/society", including personal information, personal records, public surveillance, and other topics. An obvious feature of her works is the unique and extremely subjective criteria of judgment and reference for measurement.
#IRUNWITHAHMAUD
Practitioner:
Akeem Baker with Go Fund Me
Date:
May 8 2020
The running world will come together for a virtual run on Friday, May 8, to celebrate and honor the life of Ahmaud Arbery, who was reportedly shot and killed while out on a run on February 23.
Activism Through Art by an Angry Feminist Whale
Practitioner:
Moule
Date:
Mar 3 2020
Inspired by the ecological disaster unfolding across the planet and driven by empowering underrepresented people, Moule, a painter, illustrator, and graphic designer, creates art that makes a statement. Dressed in a magenta blazer and wearing bright pink lipstick, she is as colourful and spirited as one of her illustrations.
Old People's Home
Practitioner:
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Date:
Jul 12 2008
These thirteen life-like sculptures resemble familiar politicians, admirals, generals, bishops, and dictators. Portrayed as frail seniors, they sit dozing off and drooling in electric wheelchairs. They roll on a slow collision course, crashing into each other like bumper cars.
Abbie Hoffman and Yippies shower money on the NYSE
Practitioner:
Abbie Hoffman, James Fouratt and the Yippies
Date:
Aug 24 1967
One interesting thing about this stunt is that there is no record of it other than the Yippies' wonderful testimony. We believe that it actually happened, but it shows that storytelling is the most important part of any action of this sort.
Poetry to challenge GBV from an intersectional lens – the Sari Red
Practitioner:
Pratibha Parmar
Date:
Mar 1 1988
Sari Red (1988), by Pratibha Parmar, is a visual poem. Made in memory of Kalbinder Kaur Hayre, a young Indian woman killed in 1985 in a racist attack in England, Sari Red eloquently examines the effect of the ever-present threat of violence upon the lives of Asian women in both private and public spheres.
Shouting 喊
Practitioner:
Xu Zhen 徐震
Date:
Jan 1 1998
Shouting is one of Xu Zhen’s early works questioning the limits of individual expression. First exhibited at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, the video shows Xu hiding in crowds and performing a series of loud screams in Shanghai.
#DontMuteDC and Moechella Protest
Practitioner:
Don't Mute DC and Long Live Go-Go
Date:
Apr 7 2019
In response to white gentrifiers trying to silence go-go music on the corners of Florida Avenue and 7th Avenue, activists and D.C. residents poured into the streets by blasting go-go music and celebrating its rich history within the city. For those unfamiliar, go-go music is at the heart of D.C. culture and features live bands playing covers of, and sometimes original, music with all different types of drums and other percussion instruments.
Brick X Brick
Practitioner:
Public Displays of Affection
Date:
Jan 21 2018
Brick x Brick is a public art performance that builds human “walls” against misogyny. It is organized by the Public Displays of Affection, a collective of artists, designers, educators and organizers that engages in nonviolent direct art action. During the wall performances, participants wear brick-patterned jumpsuits adorned with colorful brick patches bearing statements of misogynistic violence made by US President Donald Trump.
Rhythm 0
Practitioner:
Marina Abramović
Date:
Jun 1 1974
This is Marina Abramović's first attempt to interact with the audience on the spot, allowing the audience to become part of her work. Guns, bullets, kitchen knives, whips and other dangerous items), the audience can use any item to do whatever they want to her. Due to the unpredictable danger of the work, Marina promised to take full responsibility for the performance of the performance art.
Literatura Exposta (Literature Exposed)
Practitioner:
Álvaro Figueiredo
Date:
Jan 15 2019
Artists in Rio de Janeiro have staged a pop-up street show to protest against the closure by the new far-right state government of an exhibition because of a performance attacking dictatorship-era torture.
After their slogan was outlawed, pro-Palestinian activists turned to a karaoke classic
Practitioner:
Pro Palestinian Activists
Date:
Apr 26 2026
Brisbane, Australia — The flash mob descended on Brisbane’s city square, wearing double denim and blond wigs in the style of a legendary Australian singer as they danced with wild abandon to one of his 1980s hits.
Flower Power
Practitioner:
civilian
Date:
Oct 21 1967
Flower power was a slogan used during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and nonviolence. It is rooted in the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The expression was coined by the American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in 1965 as a means to transform war protests into peaceful affirmative spectacles.
Disability Rights In The Woods
Practitioner:
Guerilla Crip
Date:
Mar 26 2026
Guerilla Crip performs disability rights poetry in her local woods to protest about the persecution, discrimination and oppression that disabled people in the UK have endured since 2010 in the UK. We are being impoverished, demonised and targeted in society and by successive governments. Enough is enough!
Es-Cultura Lesbiana
Practitioner:
Lesbianas Sin Duda (LSD)
Date:
Jun 1 1995
As a result of the social stigma of homosexuality, lesbian feminists were rejected and silenced as a radical minority within the mainstream Movimiento Feminista (MF). Lesbianas Sin Duda (LSD) is a queer activist group based in Madrid that arose in the early 1990s as a response to this erasure.
untitled (Long Live the Real King)
Practitioner:
Unknown
Date:
Feb 24 2025
An A.I. generated video of Donald Trump sucking Elon Musk's toes was broadcast at the Department of Housing and Development headquarters in DC in February of 2025. As an actual art piece, we can debate if the video itself is art. However, the caption, subject matter of the fake video, and chosen location to broadcast is definitely a strategic work of creative activism. From the New York Times:

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