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…?
"A Night of Philosophy and Ideas is a thinker’s lollapalooza. The free, 12-hour weekend lyceum at the Brooklyn Public Library includes spirited debate, live music, theater, performance art pieces, and film screenings. At any given hour, five or six different events will be taking place simultaneously. Visitors are encouraged to come and go as the spirit moves them.
The Balloon Project, is a three-year-in-the-making Art Installation by Yan Kong in support of world refugees and migrants. It pays tribute to human spirit, courage and survival. The Balloon Project is a multimedia work incorporating mechanical engineering and visuals to fuse art and politics. 32 balloons inflate and deflate to simulate refugee and migrants' breathing while fleeing their countries to seek safety and freedom in the world.
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.
Chuck Tingle is the Internet's most beloved author of bizarre niche erotica, perhaps best known for his masterwork Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt. The Hugo Awards are a formerly prestigious sci-fi honor, hijacked in recent years by racist neoreactionaries and Gamergaters aiming to Make Science Fiction Not Diverse Again.
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.
On Sunday, April 29, dozens of protesters occupied the Beaux-Arts Court at the Brooklyn Museum as they reiterated demands for a decolonization commission, about which the art institution has remained silent. The calls for the commission come after the criticisms that followed the appointment of two white curators to the museum, including in the field of African art.
I Will What I Want is a campaign launched by Under Armour which speaks to women who do not wait for permission or affirmation in order to go after what they want. The campaign highlights various models and athletes who encourage women to tune out society's standards and pursue their dreams. The campaign began by highlighting Misty Copeland, a soloist at the American Ballet Theater.
"It appears that Banksy has struck again, this time painting the brick wall of the former Reading Prison in Berkshire, England, where Oscar Wilde was jailed for two years over his “indecent” affair with Lord Alfred Douglas.
... is this for protest? Perhaps. As is described online, it mentions that there was an attempt taken to challenge power relations, specifically between men and women; however, what I find most fascinating about this 'action' is that it 'demonstrates' the discrepancy between the female body as depicted in the painting, The Origin of the World, and the physically present form of Deborah's own body, i.e. genitalia.
It’s women’s history month, and your favorite radical feminist avengers want you to go ape. The Guerrilla Girls have been making noise about gender and racial inequality in the art world since 1985. Fighting discrimination with a sense of humor and their signature faux fur, these masked feminists continue to challenge major museums to spotlight more women and artists of color.
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.
Eight years after his death, the annual August Wilson Monologue Competition provides high school students from around the country an opportunity to carry on the African-American playwright’s legacy. That legacy includes Pulitzer Prizes for “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson,” two installments of Wilson’s 10-play series set in his hometown of Pittsburgh that examined 20th-century black life through the personal and political struggles of everyday people.
A woman dressed in western clothes and a hijab is a common sight across Europe’s capital cities – a fact now reflected on the catwalk at Milan fashion week.
Halima Aden, a Somali-American model, is fast becoming fashion’s face of 2017, currently stealing the show at fashion week from the catwalk superstar Gigi Hadid.
Brother Gao are two China artists. Their works are aims at reflecting the reality of Chinese society in an artistic and critical view. In 2003, the brothers held an event to invite many strangers for a dinner.
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.
The 15M movement in Spain grew out of a desire for liberation and greater access to social and political rights for marginalized groups. At its core the activists of 15M were visionaries and used voting for a utopian society as a creative act to reimagine the world they created. Reality is socially construed by the forces that determine individual agency.
The story of an artist. Laolu Senbanjo grew up surrounded by the culture and mythology of the Yoruba, an ethnic group from the southwest of Nigeria, but he never imagined how it would influence the artist he is today. After a career as a human rights attorney, Senbanjo moved to New York City to pursue art full time. “With my art, I like to tell stories, I like to start a conversation,” says Senbanjo, but life as an artist in New York was tough.
Female Frequency is a collective dedicated to empowering women & girls through the creation of music that is entirely female generated. "We are making an album created entirely by females, start to finish --
this means that all writing, instrumentation, arrangement, performance, production, engineering, mixing, mastering, marketing and visual media will be carried out by females."
Ricardo Levins Morales is an artist and organizer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was born into the anti-colonial movement in Puerto Rico, and when his family moved to Chicago in 1967, he became interested in activism. After leaving high school early, he worked in various industries and began to use art as part of his activism work.
Before Chance the Rapper performed at sold-out concert venues, he practiced his rhymes in front of an intimate crowd of roughly a dozen people at Harold Washington Library. Now the rapper is trying to return the favor, one open mic at a time.