Artistic Activism Favorite 

The “Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef,” a unique exhibition and thought-provoking fusion of science, conservation, mathematics, and art, is on display in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. By engaging local communities to crochet coral reefs, the exhibition celebrates the reefs' beautiful diversity and speaks to the urgent need to protect these vanishing ecosystems.

In 2023, it is impossible to be an apolitical artist in Eastern Europe. As war rages on in Ukraine, art serves as a powerful and necessary tool, according the members of the Sunflower Solidary Community Center in Warsaw: Maria Beburia, Sebastian Cichocki, Kuba Depczyński, Taras Gembik, Yulia Krivich, Kaja Kusztra, Natalia Sielewicz, and Bogna Stefańska.

At first, you don’t know what you’re looking at. A gray expanse of uneven geometry surrounded by undulating brown. Shift your perspective a bit and it might be a close-up of a distressed textile, with subtle hues and textures surfacing as your eyes adjust.

And then the horizon comes into focus. Now you know where you are. In the distance are the classic jutting buttes of Monument Valley, familiar to anyone who’s ever seen a John Ford Western.

Kwame Brathwaite, the photographer and activist whose work gave a visual identity to the “Black is Beautiful” movement, died on April 1. He was 85.

The news was shared by his son, Kwame Brathwaite, Jr., in an Instagram post. “I am deeply saddened to share that my Baba, the patriarch of our family, our rock and my hero has transitioned,” Brathwaite, Jr. wrote. “Thank you for your love and support during this difficult time.”

Climate protesters in Washington, D.C. were handcuffed on Thursday after they dragged paint on a glass cover protecting an art sculpture.

The incident happened at the National Gallery of Art by the activism group Declare Emergency in an attempt to bring attention to climate change, according to the Washington Post.