Projects tagged "Arts & Culture"

Fighting Violence with Art
Practitioner:
Sam Ryu, Ethan Regan
Date:
Dec 11 2023
One of the oldest forms of human expression is art, so it’s no surprise that art is constantly used to critique another of humanity’s oldest practices, violence and war. In the world of art activism, the power of creativity and innovation has been used to create commentary about war since the beginning of time. Art that speaks out against the atrocities of violent conflict embodies empathy, care, and a plethora of other human emotions.
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4
Funk Lessons
Practitioner:
Adrian Piper
Date:
May 6 1982
Adrian Piper's "Funk Lessons" (1982-84) was a series of performances and collaborative events in which the artist taught white participants about black funk music, its culture, and its history, aiming to deconstruct stereotypical ideas about Black culture.
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9
Chinese 'naked' wedding celebrations focus on love - not money
Practitioner:
Ten couple from Zhejiang
Date:
Mar 24 2015
Ten couples covered in body paint wearing only their underwear have celebrated their “naked weddings” at Hangzhou Paradise amusement park in Zhejiang province. The couples, some of whom have been married for many years, said they were rejecting modern Chinese values, which place greater value on money than love. In China, a naked wedding involves a couple marrying without owning a house or car.
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2
"Be the first follower" dance video
Practitioner:
Shirtless guy
Date:
May 26 2000
If you've learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let's watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons: A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he's doing is so simple, it's almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!
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4
Artists mark Trump's inauguration anniversary with day of protest art
Practitioner:
The Federation, a volunteer-run arts organization spearheaded by artist Laurie Anderson and producers Tanya Selvaratnam and Laura Michalchyshyn
Date:
Jan 19 2018
This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump's inauguration. It also marks the one-year anniversary of the Women's March his election inspired, the largest single-day protest in the nation's history.
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7
Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei
Practitioner:
Ai Weiwei
Date:
Mar 12 2025
“Everything is art. Everything is politics.” Globally renowned artist Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957) is celebrated as a disruptor of artistic canons and a champion of free expression. In his work—ranging across performance, photography, sculpture, video, and installation—he deploys humor and provocation, calling upon his viewers to examine history, society, and culture.
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7
Bristol Activists Use Street Art to Fight Gentrification
Practitioner:
The People's Republic of Stokes Croft
Date:
Feb 8 2016
The People’s Republic of Stokes Croft is using street art to preserve the identity of Bristol’s most culturally diverse neighbourhood.
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38
Potatoe Walkout
Practitioner:
Peter Pink
Date:
Mar 31 2013
"Potatoe Walkout" is a series of art installations located outside public food venues, featuring potatoes and cucumbers outfitted in sunglasses, picket signs, umbrellas, and other objects (depending on the depicted scene, which varies). Some scenes represent protest, others represent army battles, and other represent acts of crucifixion.
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4
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.
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2
How 'Animal Farm' Gave Hope to Stalin's Refugees
Practitioner:
George Orwell
Date:
Feb 16 1946
Reading the introduction to Animal Farm by Christopher Hitchens a few years ago, I was stunned to learn that George Orwell, then a struggling writer in London, worked by letter with a group of refugees to publish the novel in Ukrainian in the displaced persons camps of postwar Europe.
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3
The Guerrilla Girls attack gender and class bias at Art Basel Hong Kong
Practitioner:
Guerrilla Girls
Date:
Mar 29 2018
For more than 30 years, the Guerrilla Girls have travelled the world exposing sexism and inequality in the art industry, and this week they proved Hong Kong was no exception. Three members of the anonymous feminist collective—calling themselves Frida Kahlo, Käthe Kollwitz and Zubeida Agha—spoke at the University of Hong Kong on Monday, dressed in their signature black outfits and gorilla masks.
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2
Umbrella Man - Occupy Central Hong Kong
Practitioner:
Milk
Date:
Oct 7 2014
The pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have a new mascot: a roughly 12-foot-high figure of wood blocks holding a bright yellow umbrella in its outstretched right hand. The students call it Umbrella Man. Umbrellas emerged as a symbol of the demonstrations after dozens of students wielded them on the night of Sept. 28 to fend off pepper spray as they jostled with the police.
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5
The Arte Útil Archive
Practitioner:
Asociación de Arte Útil
Date:
Dec 15 2013
The Arte Útil archive presents a growing archive of over two hundred case studies that imagine, create and implement beneficial outcomes by producing tactics that change how we act in society.
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6
Can Art Change the War? An Update on the Solidarity NFT Project for Ukraine
Practitioner:
JR
Date:
Mar 20 2023
In March of 2022, JR, with the help of 100 volunteers, unfurled the portrait of five-year-old, Ukrainian refugee Valeriia in Lviv, Ukraine. Leaving Ukraine, JR saw firsthand how difficult it was for women and children to get to safety due to long queues at the border. In response, he released two NFTs of Valeriia as part of his solidarity project titled: Can Art Change the War?
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3
New Orleans students showcase their creativity with iPad and Mac
Practitioner:
Ellis Marsalis Center for Music (EMCM)
Date:
Feb 3 2025
On a drizzly, overcast afternoon, all is quiet at the intersection of Bartholomew and Prieur streets in New Orleans’ historic Ninth Ward. The quiet neighborhood around the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music (EMCM) feel worlds away from the historic French Quarter packed with jazz clubs, bars, restaurants, and markets.
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1
Colorful pianos in the summer
Practitioner:
Sing For Hope
Date:
Jun 5 2017
Sing for Hope is bringing its renowned Sing for Hope Pianos back to the streets of New York City this summer. From June 5-25, as a celebration of the work Sing for Hope does in communities year-round, 60 Sing for Hope Pianos will be placed in parks and public spaces in high traffic locations across all five boroughs in New York for anyone and everyone to play.
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7
Arming Sisters
Practitioner:
Patricia Stonefish
Date:
Aug 1 2014
When Patricia Stonefish returned home to the United States from Egypt in 2014, she brought with her a new outlook for conceptualizing women's self defense. Having seen firsthand the benefits and empowerment of Taekwando/ Hapkido/ Gumdo classes for Egyptian women during and after the revolution in 2011, she decided to put her decade of martial arts training to good use on home turf.
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3
Piano Stairs - A New Reason for Choosing Staircases
Practitioner:
Wolkswagen
Date:
Feb 11 2013
“Piano Stairs” is an interactive playful musical stairway installation created into the Odenplan underground station of Stockholm to make people use stairs more often than elevator. The project was part of a Wolkswagen initiative called “The fun theory” whose main objective and mission is to “change people’s behaviour for the better by making it fun to do.”
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3
Afropunk: Feeling Black Activism’s Joy, and Its Pain
Practitioner:
Afropunk
Date:
Feb 17 2017
As Black History Month commemorations start to wind down, one festival is just gearing up. Afropunk the Takeover — Harlem, running from Tuesday through Feb. 25, will celebrate black culture with music, art, film screenings, discussions and comedy.
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8
Pop Art as Social Commentary
Practitioner:
Kadarick
Date:
Mar 1 2018
A Côte d'Ivoire-based artist, known as Kadarick, draws on the fantastical powers of The Hulk, Spiderman and Wonder Woman to articulate today's fears. In a new pop-art series of 23 paintings titled Joker, the self-taught painter explores pop culture, politics, mass media and capitalism. The series was recently on display at the LouiSimone Guirandou Gallery in Abidjan.
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6
Harry Belafonte on His Artistic Values and His Activism
Practitioner:
Harry Belafonte
Date:
Apr 25 2023
Harry Belafonte, the singer, actor and activist whose wide-ranging success blazed a trail for other Black artists in the 1950s, died on Tuesday at age 96.
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6
"WE STAND AS ONE"
Practitioner:
Vanilla Chi
Date:
Apr 14 2021
The New York-based artist has created a free-to-download poster in support of the ESEA community. Produced in response to the Covid-related surge in anti-Asian hate crimes, it can be used in a variety of ways to raise awareness and support the cause.
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4
Puppetry is the sum of the collective human imaginary
Practitioner:
Yaya Coulibali
Date:
Jan 1 2024
The veteran Malian master puppeteer Yaya Coulibali, born in 1959 in the village of Koula, around 100 kilometres north-east of Bamako, has more than half a century of experience in puppetry and has toured the world to perform his art.
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1
The Wisdom of the Universe
Practitioner:
Christi Belcourt
Date:
Jan 1 2014
The Wisdom of the Universe was painted in 2014 by Métis artist, author, and activist Christi Belcourt. Based in Northeastern Ontario, Belcourt is best known for her large-scale acrylic paintings — like this one — that use hundreds of thousands of tiny dots to simulate Métis beadwork. At the Art Gallery of Ontario, where The Wisdom of the Universe lives, the painting has become a popular sight.
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4
We Declare The World as Our Canvass
Practitioner:
Street Art Utopia
Date:
Mar 13 2013
The website 'Street art utopia' has an amazing collection of pictures of street art from Belgium, NYC, to Brazil and Israel Palestine. Talented people sharing their art publicly for the streets and the world to see! Activism: reclaiming a public space, maybe...not sure, but it is public art with various messages...
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