The Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf opens “The Gardener” with the declaration: “I am an agnostic filmmaker.” From anyone else, this might seem like a simple statement, but not from the complex Mr. Makhmalbaf. In 1974, when he was 17, religious and involved in a guerrilla group, he stabbed a policeman, for which he received a bullet to the stomach and a prison sentence.
Ghana ThinkTank is an international collective that “develops the first world” by flipping traditional power dynamics, asking the “third world” to intervene into the lives of the people living in the so-called “developed” world.
He had served in the army, either as a full-time soldier or as a reservist, for 22 years when he finally decided he wanted out. In 2003, Ari Folman, who had just turned 40, asked his commanders in the Israel Defence Forces to release him from the obligation to do a month's military service every year. They agreed - "so long as you go to the army therapist and talk about everything you went through".
As the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, hundreds of people gathered inside the Museum of Modern Art and outside of the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday for protests.
Members of three organizations – Artists Building Communities, Essential Food and Medicine, and Living Earth Structures – have built a kitchen, clinic, free store, stage, toilet, oven, and shower with and for a homeless community near Wood Street in West Oakland.
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.
Cosmic Generator presents a network of characters working in nonsensical, and at times absurd, economies. Artist Mika Rottenberg uses footage from actual discount dollar stores in Calexico, CA; Mexicali, Mexico; and Yiwu, China to recreate the imaginary “life” of a product, from its production in the factory to the moment it is sold.
This is a series of paintings reflecting the struggle and sacrifices made by the Tibetan people for independence. The author is Tenzing Rigdol, who is a Tibetan and influenced a lot by the Dalai Lama and traditional Tibetan culture. The paintings are full of Tibetan cultural elements. For instance, the characters created in the paintings are Tibetan monks, who are the typical representatives of their culture.
Mayday is a neighborhood resource and a citywide destination for engaging programming, a home for radical thought and debate, and a welcoming gathering place for people to work, learn, drink, dance and build together.
A collective resistance movement dedicated to reasserting communal ownership of common spaces, Reclaim the Streets staged its first action on Camden High Street in 1995, when activists closed the road to vehicle traffic to make way for a street party. Combining the tactics of non-violent direct action with 90's UK rave culture, organizers kept the location secret until the last moment to preempt police interception.
Swedish lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates offered their colorful stance on Russia's controversial anti-gay legislation over the weekend.
Just weeks after activists staged an alternative tour of the American Museum of Natural History to call for its removal, among other things, the equestrian statue of Teddy Roosevelt was vandalized early Thursday morning.
Hundreds of demonstrators have marched through a shopping district in the Chinese city of Shanghai to protest against changes to housing regulations, in a rare show of public dissent in the financial hub.
Footage of the late Saturday protests shared on social media showed hundreds of demonstrators holding placards and shouting slogans while marching along Nanjing Road, a glitzy shopping strip in the city center.
In the south-western city of Chengdu, by all accounts a city on the edge coping with heavy pollution but also with authorities scrambling to put a lid on simmering discontent. That night police detained a number of artists who managed to stage a silent demonstration, while wearing face masks.
Luzinterruptus turns their art activism towards the overabundance of dog doo littering the city’s streets.
The studio inflated 500 poop-scoopin' plastic bags and placed a lightbulb inside each one.
Installation lasted nine hours.
"Improving
the livability of our towns and cities commonly starts at the street,
block, or building scale. While larger scale efforts do have their
place, incremental, smallscale improvement efforts are increasingly seen
as a way to stage more substantial investments. This approach allows a
host of local actors to test new concepts before making substantial
Students from Colombia College teamed up with Greenpeace and The Yes Men to take on the Chicago coal industry in an elaborate, multi-layered hoax. The group created a scheme to announce that a new coal plant was planned—but instead of going in a poor neighborhood (like the two coal plants that already exist), this one would be built in a rich one.
Creative Time, Social Practice Archive: In 2000 Heavy Trash, an anonymous arts organization of designers, architects, and urban planners, implemented its Aqua Line project throughout various parts of Los Angeles. The project involved the installation of false "Future Station Location" signs in the downtown area, notifying passersby of the impending construction of a subway that would connect the downtown to the Westside.
Two design students were awarded the Futurapolis prize last Wednesday for their project to adapt the Furan (underground river) , a response to the migration crisis.
Conceived and curated by Bushwick native Joe Ficalora, the Bushwick Collective has evolved into an extraordinary open-air gallery since its first mural surfaced in 2011.
Attracting a wondrous array of local, national and international artists, it showcases first-rate street art -- from legendary Blek Le Rat stencils to huge collaborative walls by such world-renowned artists as Case Ma'Claim and Pixel Pancho.
A group of young adults under the name of "Love Tijuana" (Amemos Tijuana) celebrated the one year "Birthday" of a pothole located at the Via Rapida (Tijuana's Freeway) with balloons, banners, and even hats.
Spearheaded by Latitude Artist Community, Project Easy Access Lexington (PEAL) organized team 'Bricksquad' to help make the sidewalks and streets of downtown Lexington, KY more wheelchair accessible. Armed with only a canvas bag of few bricks, sand, and some tools the teams would make their way through the sidewalks restoring bricks as needed. The damage to the sidewalks was such that the gesture was symbolic more than effectual initially.
For this edition of ADE, Stichting NDSM-werf invited art- and activist group Tools for Action + Floor to use their terrain as a public practice space for RÆV REHEARSAL. They invite the public to rehearse new forms of assembly. With a Bluetooth speakers system, floating inflatable sculptures, and a minimalist techno beat, they move through the city like a radiating dancing swarm.