I went on a graffiti tour that went through NOHO, SOHO and the Lower East Side last weekend. We saw works by street artists - Space Invader and Roa - that were remarkable. Roa had created a commissioned mural of a bird on the side of a building, and the former artist derived his work from the unforgettable arcade game, Space Invader.
The latest episode in Nicolas Heller's documentary web series "No Your City," as published by Gothamist, features the arguably pretentious, inarguably earnest street performer Kalan Sherrard, who was recently arrested during his peaceful anarchist puppet show. Functioning as a video manifesto for his peculiar ways, the clip is at least compelling.
Unveiling the Unseen
BlindWiki is a location-based audio network where citizens who are blind or partially sighted use smartphones to share their findings by posting sound recordings. The platform does not just contain information about difficulties and barriers but is also a repository for experiences, opinions and stories, generating a creative and collaborative cartography of the unseen.
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.
Post revolution Tunisia is all too familiar with protest – usually through demonstrations - but one group of activists are using the power of street art to get their message across. Calling themselves “Fanni Raghman Anni” (Arabic for “My Art in Spite of Myself”), the group simply scouts the streets of Tunisia bringing theater and drama to random passers-by.
In state capitals and street protests, women’s rights activists have been wearing red robes and white bonnets based on “The Handmaid's Tale,” the 1985 novel that is now a series on Hulu.
Silent, heads bowed, the activists in crimson robes and white bonnets have been appearing at demonstrations against gender discrimination and the infringement of reproductive and civil rights.
Miku is a Japanese virtual idol. She is 16 years old. Miku is created in 2007 and has been heavily promoted since 2008 and was originally aimed at professional musicians. On September 12, 2007, Amazon.co.jp reported sales of Hatsune Miku totaling 57,500,000 yen, making her the number one selling software of that time. She was the first vocal to be developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media and sung in Japanese.
In “Speech/Acts,” a group exhibition organized by Meg Onli at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Tiona Nekkia McClodden stood out as artists who take up voices, histories, and experiences that can help audiences move forward and endure in the future.
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.
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.
Conscious Lee is a public awareness project to help people value and protect their rivers. Rivers are rich sources of life and are vital for clean water. They are beautiful spaces to connect with nature. We all need to appreciate our rivers. We can all help river wildlife and protect this natural amenity for future generations.
The scraps of paper swirled through the Guggenheim Museum in New York on Saturday night like confetti, thrown from an upper walkway into the central rotunda before floating to the ground.
The American rapper’s performance of 'Stand Up for Something' with singer Andra Day has gone down as one of the highlights of this year’s Academy Awards.
Common used his Oscars performance to condemn Donald Trump’s “hate” and the National Rifle Association.
The American rapper’s performance of “Stand Up for Something” with singer Andra Day has been held up by many as one of the highlights of this year’s Academy Awards.
Counterspace is an independent curatorial platform and the first decolonial thinktank mapping cultural activism worldwide. Shaped by the phases of the decolonial process, Counterspace unlearning toolkit proposes common resources and experiences to unpack and redefine so far consisting of decolonial publications, a decolonial library, decolonial labs and forum talks.
“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.”
MEXICO CITY — Of the half-dozen pieces that form Tania Bruguera’s series “Tatlin’s Whisper,” the one that the Cuban government silenced may have resounded most.
The Guerrilla Girls tactic was well thought-out and was effective in creating a spectacle to draw attention to the issue at hand, which is the lack of female representation in the museum. Where I think the campaign has some drawbacks is in the actual message on the billboard. The rhetorical and ironic message is subtle and really only reaches those who are privy to the art world and/ or the museum.
Cheril Linett is a female artist from Chile, with a background in performance art and stage performance, who primarily focuses her artwork on feminist issues in Chile, especially ones involving violence, murder, hate crime and different kinds of oppression and assault, but also creates artwork reflecting issues in other parts of Latin America.
In this space, Teaching Artist contributors from around the U.S. and the world bring you stories of their work at the crossroads of art and learning. The stories that our bloggers bring to ALT/space are born inside the practice of teaching and art making in all artistic and expressive mediums: visual arts, dance, traditional arts, outsider art, music, theater, storytelling, writing and…?
Imagine if back in the 1960s, creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee had found inspiration for The Avengers in Yoruba mythology. Instead of Iron Man, we'd have the warrior Oxaguiã. Taking the place of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Norse god Thor would be the equally strong and black-skinned Xangô, the ruler of justice — who also happens to carry a hammer.
In 2015, MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini was developing a device called the Aspire Mirror. Onlookers would stare into a webcam and then see a reflection on their face of something that inspires them.
At least, that was the plan. But Buolamwini quickly noticed that the facial recognition software was struggling to track her face — until she put on a white mask.
From Jezebel:
Marley Dias is an 11-year-old New Jersey resident who’s rounding up children’s books that feature black female leads so that she and her peers have more fictional characters to look up to.
The project, titled #1000BlackGirlBooks, started when Marley complained to her mother about reading too many books about white male protagonists in school.
From an article in BoredPanda:
"If you’ve ever felt like your voice and opinion doesn’t matter in the vast world, then Seth is here to prove you wrong. This New Yorker runs the ‘Dude With Sign’ Instagram account where he uploads photos of himself protesting the strangest, weirdest, most random things. And the best thing is, we can relate to most of what he’s written on his signs.
“The Feminist Zine Fest showcases the work of artists and zine makers of all genders who identify on the feminist spectrum, and whose politics are reflected in their work. For the second consecutive year, Barnard proudly hosts the zine fest, welcoming approximately 40 zine-makers eager to share their work.