Projects tagged "Civil Liberties"

A Piece of Red Cloth - Rock n' Roll Performed in 1989
Practitioner:
Cui Jian
Date:
Jun 19 1989
“I performed at Tiananmen Square in 1989, 15 days before the crackdown. I sang A Piece of Red Cloth (一块红布), a tune about alienation. I covered my eyes with a red cloth to symbolize my feelings. The students were heroes. They needed me, and I needed them. After Tiananmen, however, authorities banned concerts. We performed instead at “parties,” unofficial shows in hotels and restaurants”.
How Feminists in China Are Using Emoji to Avoid Censorship
Practitioner:
Chinese feminists
Date:
Mar 30 2018
Shortly after the close of this year’s International Women’s Day, China’s Twitter-like service Sina Weibo shut down Feminist Voices. With 180,000 followers, the group’s social media account was one of the most important advocacy channels for spreading information about women’s issues in China, but in an instant, it was gone. A few hours later, the private messaging app WeChat also shuttered an account for the group.
Activism at the Met Gala
Practitioner:
Joe Gebbia, Yeonmi Park
Date:
May 1 2017
Now that the dust has settled from the Met Gala, with all the excitement over Kylie Jenner’s bathroom selfie and Rihanna’s body-swallowing Comme des Garçons florals, it is worth pausing to consider a red carpet moment most people missed: the entrance of Joe Gebbia, co-founder and chief product officer of Airbnb, with Yeonmi Park, a North Korean refugee and international refugee activist.
"Guerras Electorales"....a game that mimics electoral fraud
Practitioner:
Innox
Date:
May 1 2012
Right before the presidential elections in Mexico, planned for July of 2012, a local software enterprise has developed a smart-phone game that shows how to commit fraud at the elections.
Gay Rights Activists in Beijing Protest for Their Russian Comrades
Practitioner:
a small group of gay rights activists
Date:
Feb 14 2014
A small group of gay rights activists gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Beijing on Valentine’s Day to protest Russia’s antigay laws. Behind a rainbow banner that read “To Russia with Love,” a dozen activists cheered as three couples puckered up and kissed in front of a countdown clock for the Sochi Winter Olympics outside the embassy’s tall walls.
Feast
Practitioner:
Voina
Date:
Aug 24 2007
Voina conducted a wake for absurdist poet and Soviet-era dissident Dmitry Prigov, featuring a table with food and vodka, in a Moscow Metro car. Originally, they had planned an action involving Prigov but he died before they were able to implement it. They later carried out a similar action on the Kiev Metro. As an art collective, Voina is testing the boundaries of performance art. As activists, they are testing the patience of Russian authorities.
Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
Practitioner:
Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
Date:
Mar 7 2013
Jews For Palestinian Right of Return January 1, 2013 “For Palestinians, the right to return home and the right to live in dignity and equality in their own land are not any less important than the right to live free of military occupation.” –Prof. Saree Makdisi[1] For more than a century, Zionists have sought to construct a “Jewish state” through forced removal of the indigenous Palestinian people.
Benjamin Lay spills blood at 1738 Quaker Meeting
Practitioner:
Benjamin Lay
Date:
Sep 1 1738
It was September 1738, and Benjamin Lay had walked 20 miles, subsisting on “acorns and peaches,” to reach the Quakers’ Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Beneath his overcoat he wore a military uniform and a sword — both anathema to Quaker teachings. He also carried a hollowed-out book with a secret compartment, into which he had tucked a tied-off animal bladder filled with bright red pokeberry juice.
Actionplay To Present A New Musical THE SURFACE
Practitioner:
Actionplay
Date:
May 14 2022
Actionplay, a theatre company dedicated to providing autistic, neurodivergent, and disabled teens and young adults equal access to the theatre-making process, is pleased to announce their next production, the new musical comedy The Surface (or, That One Time Atlantis Washed Up On the Beach).
ABOLISH ICE
Practitioner:
Patricia Dahlman and Michael Dal Cerro
Date:
Apr 7 2026
The resistance to Trump’s ICE militia is strong and is documented in the online art exhibition, “ABOLISH ICE” https://sites.google.com/view/abolish-ice/home The participating artists-activists are from New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California.
Traveling While Black
Practitioner:
Felix & Paul Studios
Date:
Jan 25 2019
The theatre has luxurious red velvet upholstered seats, grand ceilings and gilded trimmings. The rows of chairs stretch back into the ostensible blackness, with light beaming from the projector room. Ahead, archival footage of stylish black travelers pack the screen as an unseen narrator discusses the hardships of mid-20th-century black travel.
The Courtroom Sketch
Practitioner:
Various Courtoom Sketch Artists
Date:
Feb 1 2021
Courtoom sketches were, for many cases, the only glimpses into high profile trails that captivated the nation. Now, over 200 of these sketches by artists will be in the Library of Congress, ranging from cases such as The Rodney King trial, the Watergate scandal, and the Allen v. Farrow custody battle. While the Nation's Library will be collecting these sketches for their historic value, many seek to buy the "art" as an investment.
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Practitioner:
Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, NAACP
Date:
Dec 1 1955
In 1900, Montgomery, Alabama had passed a city ordinance to segregate bus passengers by race, and conductors were empowered to assign seats to achieve that goal. The first four rows of seats on each Montgomery bus were reserved for whites, and buses had "colored" sections for black people generally in the rear of the bus, although blacks composed more than 75% of the ridership.
Negro Matapacos
Practitioner:
Maldito Perrito
Date:
Jan 1 2015
The streets of Santiago are once again alive with the spirit of revolution. For weeks now, working-class Chileans have occupied national monuments and blocked major intersections in protest of widespread inequality. They desire full reform — a request so long in the making that it is practically tradition. The country’s floundering political elite offer half measures while dispatching riot police and the military.
25 Years Ago, Rage Against the Machine Whipped Their Dicks Out in Protest
Practitioner:
Rage Against the Machine
Date:
Jul 18 1993
When Rage Against the Machine arrived in Philadelphia to play their 15-minute set as part of Lollapalooza ’93, the Los Angeles band knew they had a problem. Zack de la Rocha, the band’s incendiary frontman who was as outspoken on the mic as he was loud in his cadence, had no voice. A month of playing shows on a tour to support their self-titled debut album released the previous November had taken its toll on the frontman’s vocal cords.
Art, Activism and the Age of AIDS
Practitioner:
David Wojnarowicz
Date:
May 15 1981
David Wojnarowicz as a Catalyst for Collective Action
Art of the Umbrella Movement
Practitioner:
civil disobedience movement
Date:
Sep 26 2014
Art of the Umbrella movement refers to artistic works created as part of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong which demanded democracy in the election of the territory's top leader. Most of the physical works of art are located within the three main protest sites of Admiralty, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok.
This is America
Practitioner:
Donald Glover/ Childish Gambino
Date:
May 6 2018
(NEWS 8) — A day after pulling double-duty as both the host and musical guest on "Saturday Night Live," actor-writer-comedian-musician Donald Glover was garnering attention on Sunday for another reason. Social media blew up this weekend with reactions to Glover's new music video for "This is America," released under the name of his musical alter ego, Childish Gambino.
Rap Challenge to the Thai Military Junta
Practitioner:
Rap Against Dictatorship
Date:
Feb 15 2019
BANGKOK — The rhymes came to Nutthapong Srimuong before dawn, when Bangkok is as still as it can be and the night jasmine overpowers the Thai capital with its perfume. The country whose capital is turned into a killing field Whose charter is written and erased by the army’s boots The country that points a gun at your throat Where you must choose to eat the truth or bullets
Call for Remove Homophobic Chinese Textbooks
Practitioner:
Chen Qiuya, other LGBT human right activists
Date:
Nov 1 2015
In November 2015, Chinese LGBT activist Chen Qiuyan met with government officials in Beijing after months of campaigning to have the Ministry of Education remove textbooks which identify homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 2001, the Chinese Society of Psychiatry removed homosexuality from its list of recognized mental disorders, after the Chinese government decriminalized consensual homosexual acts in 1997.
Pan American Unity
Practitioner:
Diego Rivera
Date:
Sep 14 1940
The Stanford Daily: There is no word short of “spectacular” that better describes the experience of examining “Pan American Unity,” Diego Rivera’s 1940 mural, housed since 2021 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The piece is the crux of SFMOMA’s soon-closing exhibition, “Diego Rivera’s America,” curated by James Oles and Maria Castro.
Ovary Funny: Womens' Rights Project Hopes to Have Members of Congress In Stitches
Practitioner:
Government Free VJJ
Date:
Mar 30 2012
BY MIRANDA NEUBAUER | Friday, March 30 2012
Aboriginal Tent Embassy
Practitioner:
Aboriginal Tent Embassy
Date:
Jan 27 1972
In the 1970s, inspired by the Black Power movement in the US, Aboriginal people were politically very active. In Sydney, Australia’s first Aboriginal legal and medical services were founded. Aboriginal people demanded land rights for the areas that they lived on since millennia. Land rights were considered the key to economic independance, and land the base to generate resources and employment.
Autonomy Cube
Practitioner:
Trevor Paglen, Jason Applebaum
Date:
Jan 1 2014
Pursuing the possibility of emancipatory use of technology, Paglen, together with Jacob Appelbaum, developed Autonomy Cube (2014). Autonomy Cube is a sculpture and internet router designed to be housed in civic spaces. The sculpture is meant to be both “seen” and “used.” Formally it references Hans Haacke's 'Condensation Cube' (1963-65).
Stop Sign Takeover
Practitioner:
Daku
Date:
May 20 2014
Daku is an Indian graffiti artist that engages in street art with political and social meaning. Little else is known about the elusive artist, due to the illegal nature of his work. The name "Daku" literally translates to bandit or dacoit in Hindi.

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