Just over a decade ago on May 15, 2011, a wave of social outrage began as the Spanish people collectively decided that they had had enough of the corruption, cuts, and inequalities affecting their country.
You could hear their chants from the White House.
On June 6, hundreds of activists and protesters gathered on Black Lives Matter Plaza, a two-block section on 16th Street in Washington D.C. that was renamed amid BLM protests.
John Shore and his wife Catherine had been attending the First Presbyterian Church of San Diego for six years when they were nominated to serve as deacons. But before they could be ordained, they were asked to sign a document agreeing that no person in a same-sex relationship should hold any position of authority within the church, which is one of the city’s oldest. It was 1990.
When Behnaz Babazadeh was young, her family moved from Afghanistan to the US. She loved almost everything about her new home — especially America’s amazing selection of candy — but she also loved wearing her familiar pink-flowered headscarf, which she’d grown used to wearing as part of her school uniform in her old home.
In May 1992, a series of 24 billboards displaying an identical image began appearing throughout New York City. They featured a giant close-up black-and-white photograph, without text, of a rumpled bed, pillows still indented from the heads that had rested there.
The ZAD (zone à défendre, or “zone to defend”) in Western France is 4000 acres of wetland, farmland and forest that was originally intended to be built into an airport in 1965 but is now an autonomous territory occupied by 40 different collectives looking to reclaim the land. There are around 200 people living permanently on the zone, in addition to some 2,000 people coming and going.
Located in Thomas Paine Plaza, across the street from City Hall, Hank Willis Thomas’s All Power to All People was a public art intervention that dealt with racial identity and representation in Philadelphia.
Play Safe is a documentary film series created and directed by NYU alum Eddie Einbinder. The film, much of which now appears for free on YouTube, was originally released in 2013 after being filmed between 2011 and 2012. It debuted at the International Harm Reduction conference in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2013.
For some, October 14, 1968, was a clarion call to the future.
On that day, a group of 12 black students at UC Santa Barbara, tired of the unequal treatment and passive-aggressive racism they received as Black athletes — and as members of the campus community at large — barricaded themselves in the university’s North Hall.
In a sleepy town in Iranian Kurdistan, people take off their winter coats. It is evening, and outside one can just about discern the silhouettes of the mountains that lead to the Turkish and Iraqi borders. Inside, some 60 people fill the small community centre with a clammy heat. But it is not just warmth they are after. They have come for poetry.
TOLEDO, Ohio — April is National Sexual Assault Awareness month. Everyone is being asked to stay at home during the coronavirus outbreak, but for victims of sexual and domestic violence, it can be dangerous.
Notre Dame Academy senior Emilyn Lagger is using this time away from school to raise money and let victims know they're not alone.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of this country’s most beloved theater companies. Founded in New York City in 1963, the Bread and Puppet Theater’s first productions ranged from puppet shows for children to pieces opposing poor housing conditions. The group’s processions, involving monstrous puppets, some about 20 feet high, became a fixture of protests against the Vietnam War. "We don’t have playwrights in the theater.
Organized in large part by Project Laundry List, in 2007 a four-hundred foot clothesline was strung in front of Hydro-Quebec headquarters to protest their destruction of the Rupert River and the traditional hunting grounds of the Cree and Innu so that people in the US and along the border can dry their clothes in a tumble dryer. Project Laundry List promotes clotheslines as a simple way for America to save 10% on its residential energy bill!
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.
In 1988, rap group the N.W.A from Compton, California released their second album, “Straight Outta Compton”. Without any radio play or media coverage, the album still managed to become an underground hit, and the notorious rap group successfully introduced socially conscious gangsta rap into the mainstream.
Sebastián Mahaluf stands out as an artist deeply engaged in weaving the complex threads of human connection, community, and the interplay of personal and collective experiences. His notable work, "CONTRADICTION AND TENSION," showcases his approach to art as a participatory experience that bridges individual perceptions with communal narratives.
Chanel Miller is a Palo Alto–born artist and writer. She first came into the public eye as “Emily Doe,” the victim of a 2015 Stanford University sexual assault whose impact statement presented in court went viral. Miller relinquished her anonymity in 2019, when she published the acclaimed memoir, “Know My Name.” "I was, I am, I will be" is Miller’s first commissioned artwork for a museum and is on view through February 2022.
The Harlem Festival of Culture not only pays homage to the past but also envisions a brighter future. It serves as a platform to showcase the rich diversity and dynamism of Harlem's artistic community, while also acting as a catalyst for social change and community empowerment. The festival boasts a lineup of artists from various genres and backgrounds, including jazz, soul, hip-hop, gospel, blues, rock, Latin, and Afrobeat.
ONGOING ORGANIZATION:
CALLED: Iranti [pronounced írantì] is the Yoruba word for ‘memory’. Largely found in South West Nigeria and parts of Benin Republic, the Yoruba people consider memory a prized form of intelligence which determines how often one remembers what they see and hear.
Trade School is a self-organised, alternative learning space that runs on barter. It was started in 2010 in New York’s Lower East Side by Rich Watts, Louise Ma, and Caroline Woolard of OurGoods.org, a creative barter network. Over 800 students participated in 76 single-session classes during 35 days. Anyone can teach a class, and students sign up by agreeing to meet the barter requests of teachers.