"SOA Cycle, and what it later became, which is called the Democracy Cycle, is a group of seven large works that approach the question of democracy. What is democracy? How is it constructed? How is it implemented? Is it something that is to be thought of in relation to its political influence? Or is it something that plays out in terms of cultural and social, and even emotional terms, for instance?
Alokananda Roy walked into Calcutta's Presidency Jail on International Women's Day, 2007. The Indian classical dancer had been invited to watch female inmates perform, but it was the men who caught her eye.
"They shook me," she says. "Their body language — it was as though they had no future, nothing to look forward to."
In March this year, less than 100 days since he took office again, Luis Castañeda Lossio, Mayor of Lima, announced that the Municipality would remove the street art murals painted on the walls of downtown Lima’s historical city streets. “Lima has to recover all the architectural quality it has. They have chosen us and we will comply with the obligation that the population has consigned us,” said the mayor.
Crazy Rich Asians is a 2018 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Jon M. Chu, from a screenplay by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim, based on the 2013 novel of the same title by Kevin Kwan. The film stars Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Gemma Chan, Lisa Lu, Awkwafina, Ken Jeong, and Michelle Yeoh.
The New Culture Movement was initiated by Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Cai Yuanpei, Qian Xuan and other writers who had received Western education (called the new-style education at the time). It is an ideological and cultural innovation and literary revolutionary movement.
Note before the post: This article is great in highlighting a specific case of creative activism in the streets of New York City, but also gives some contextual background to how this project manifested.
On a sidewalk in the Village in downtown Manhattan, an African-American woman leans on her elbows and knees, wearing only black underpants. Scrawled in black marker all over her body are the words "Ain't I a Woman?"
A project as expansive as the Guerrilla Girls Twin Cities Takeover is a first for them. Kicking off on January 21, the festival will comprise a series of events by 30 different groups, which will take place until March 6 at more than 20 arts and cultural organizations in and around Minneapolis/St. Paul. A network of local art activists will be mobilized, and the Guerrilla Girls have been working in tandem with the area’s youth groups to prepare.
Chinese artist Ai WeiWei has drawn on the stool part of that French surrealist's pioneer work for his latest exhibition, the largest ever devoted to Ai, which opens in Berlin this Thursday. The show, entitled Evidence, is at Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition hall, and consists of either entirely new works, or pieces never seen in Germany before. The exhibition is huge, taking up 3,000 square metres in total and running across 18 rooms.
For weeks, 14 giant balloons had been mysteriously parked in front of the Sidra Medical and Research Center, a hulking steel, glass and white ceramic building devoted to women’s and children’s health that is to open on the outskirts of this city in 2015.
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An exhibition of textile-based work by disabled artists, organised in protest at the inaccessibility of an exhibition by a popular artist, when it came to Leeds.
You’ll find Johanna Toruno on the streets of NYC plastering pictures of her flower-filtered poetry, Kendrick Lamar, and Selena on blank walls, street lights and buildings. When I came across The Unapologetically Brown Series on Instagram I was intrigued not only by the name but by the concept of being unapologetic and brown as the premise for a body of street art.
Enterprising Brooklyn men CHARGING people to see the new NYC Banksy street art by hiding it behind cardboard.
Some men in the tough Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York decided to charge admission when a Banksy piece showed up on their block.
It was the October 10 addition to the British artist's month-long street art residency he's dubbed Better Out Than In.
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.
In 2009, clergy from El Oratorio Don Bosco in Italy moved to Polloc, a remote town in Peru near Cajamarca, and began to build a mid-sized cathedral. In conjunction to the construction, they opened up a workshop next to the construction site for the local youth to engage in art-making programming after school and on the weekends.
Elisa and Lily chose to create StyleLikeU as an alternative to this disempowering status quo. In 2009, the duo picked up a home video camera and launched their "Closet" series, documenting diverse individuals who were challenging fashion industry norms in their style.
On an unnamed part of the internet, young adult author Gwen C. Katz found a delightfully deluded male author claiming that his facility with writing natural women characters constituted an unassailable rebuke to the idea that we need diverse authors to write diverse viewpoints. If a male author can write a woman this convincing, surely there’s no need for the #OwnVoices movement!
By Summer Dawn Hortillosa
Jersey City’s got an art scene of movers and shakers but few can say they’ve done what David McCauley has in the past two years.
The Amplification Project: Digital Archive for Forced Migration, Contemporary Art, and Action (https://theamplificationproject.com) is a community-led participatory public digital archive to which any artist and activist can document, preserve and share their work inspired, influenced, or affected by forced migration.
Craftsmanship in Istanbul is under the danger of extinction with all the knowledge accumulated with generations of masters and apprentices. After visiting some workshops in the city, craftsmen shared with the initiators how their condition and businesses have changed since they started working.
AISHA FUKUSHIMA is a Singer, Speaker, Educator, and ‘RAPtivist’ (rap activist). Fukushima founded RAPtivism (Rap Activism), a hip hop project spanning 20 countries and four continents, amplifying universal efforts for freedom and justice.
One film to change the world. Curated every month.
BURDEN OF PEACE follows Guatemala’s first female Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz in her fight against impunity.
Throughout April 2018 a global audience came together to watch BURDEN OF PEACE, and to dig deep into the issues of women in power with our action kit, bonus features and Impact Talks podcast.