Utilizing excess construction cement that was being dumped into a creek near Beit Shemesh, Israel, Shai Zakai harnessed the unclaimed cement to create an art installation that brought awareness to the ongoing pollution. The project was entitled, 'Concrete Creek' aimed to bring the community closer to their environment. Zakai installed cement flags and set them among the river.
A major exhibition by Ai Weiwei this autumn features a new series of monumental sculptural works in iron, cast from giant tree roots sourced in Brazil during research and production for last year’s survey exhibition, ‘Raiz’, at the Oscar Niemeyer-designed OCA Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo.
“I am a silkworm.” Liang Shaoji has repeatedly used this phrase to describe his work, underscoring his preoccupation with the materiality of silk and the technology of sericulture, or silk farming. For more than twenty-five years, Liang Shaoji has raised silkworms and trained them to spin silk onto different objects in his Nature series.
The project consists of a small mobile workspace and a micro artist residency program composed by two tiny art studios founded in Oakland. Studio 1 is a solar powered art studio which was built on the back of a flatbed trailer and Studio 2 was built in collaboration with students at Stanford University, both spaces are composed of second-hand materials.
The Green Belt Movement (GBM) was founded by Professor Wangari Maathai in 1977 under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK) to respond to the needs of rural Kenyan women who reported that their streams were drying up, their food supply was less secure, and they had to walk further and further to get firewood for fuel and fencing.
In 1982, for documenta 7, Beuys proposed a plan to plant 7000 oaks throughout the city of Kassel, each paired with a basalt stone. The 7000 stones were piled up on the lawn in front of the Museum Fridericianum with the idea that the pile would shrink every time a tree was planted. The project, seen locally as a gesture towards green urban renewal, took five years to complete and has spread to other cities around the world.
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.
Linha Vermelha was created in 2016 by the non-profit organization Academia Cidadã (Citizenship Academy). At that time there were fifteen active contracts for oil and gas drilling and we were inspired by the “Red Line Action” in Paris, during COP21 and decided to create this campaign.
In 2016 an eye-catching sparrow was spotted in Scotland. The bird had ingested feed pellets from a nearby salmon farm, turning its feathers pink. Cramped in underwater feedlots, farmed salmon have no access to the prey that colour their flesh in the wild. Instead, they are fed artificial colourants mixed with supplements, drugs, and hormones, causing them to relentlessly produce the additive-filled flesh that fills supermarket shelves.
“The real wealth of the Nation,” marine biologist and author Rachel Carson wrote in her courageous 1953 protest letter, “lies in the resources of the earth — soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife… Their administration is not properly, and cannot be, a matter of politics.” Carson’s legacy inspired the creation of Earth Day and the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, whose hard-won environmental regulations are now being undone in the
From a Universe of Trash, Recycling Art and Hope
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
“We are not pickers of garbage; we are pickers of recyclable materials,” Tião, an impoverished Brazilian catadore, or trash picker, declares to a talk-show host in Lucy Walker’s inspiring documentary “Waste Land.”
The Comfort Illusion is a solo aural performance that highlights the effects our everyday actions can have on the environment. Through mixed media storytelling using sound and lighting, Adams narrates the life of "The Overkiller" a fictional villian who negatively impacts the earth and the lives of the people around him through smaller everyday decisions. This character constantly prioritizes convenience over care and responsibility (ie.
Lynn Neuman, director of New York City–based Artichoke Dance, became preoccupied with single-use disposability after she started wondering about waste and who was responsible for it. For some of her performances, she has collected massive quantities of discarded plastics, like bags and six-pack rings, and invited community members to contribute their own. “There’s a real aha moment when people see how quickly plastic amasses,” she says.
What would it be like if we switched positions with whales in captivity?
Nothing like this – but at least prankster Rémi Gaillard had some fun trying to recreate the scenario.
Climate protesters in Washington, D.C. were handcuffed on Thursday after they dragged paint on a glass cover protecting an art sculpture.
The incident happened at the National Gallery of Art by the activism group Declare Emergency in an attempt to bring attention to climate change, according to the Washington Post.
Is it possible that through affective design we can change our consumer behavior? Yan Lu and his "Little Fish Project" offer a design inspired solution to excess use of water. "As consumption is incalculable, saving is often neglected through daily consumption.
The upcoming year of fashion shows look set to be charged with climate change and environmental themes.
This year, more than ever before, we have seen that the business of fashion, at the highest levels, is responding to the push to take the very pressing issue of climate change and environmental damage seriously.
The community is invited to join with local climate activists in the “Earth Day Sing Out” from noon to 1 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
The event is designed to call for an economic stimulus to help prevent future climate crisis.
The Wisdom of the Universe was painted in 2014 by Métis artist, author, and activist Christi Belcourt. Based in Northeastern Ontario, Belcourt is best known for her large-scale acrylic paintings — like this one — that use hundreds of thousands of tiny dots to simulate Métis beadwork. At the Art Gallery of Ontario, where The Wisdom of the Universe lives, the painting has become a popular sight.
"FTSE" is Birmingham-born producer and rapper Sam Manville. As an anti-captialist, he though it would be funny to take the name of the British stock market index (Financial Times and Stock Exchange), but he also jokes the acronym stands for "Fuck The System, Ennit.”
Shift Change Dress is a community fashion & art project that utilizes a shift dress sewing pattern as a medium for communication and action. Participants are encouraged to use the pattern as a blank canvas for their art or message and to share their work with the community.
The coronavirus outbreak has prompted climate activists to abandon public demonstrations, one of their most powerful tools for raising public awareness, and shift to online protests.
This week, for example, organizers of the Fridays for Future protests are advising people to stay off the streets and post photos and messages on social media in a wave of digital strikes.
The Grim Reapers stood outside the capital building of the State of Washington as the new Governor Jay Inslee was being inaugurated. We were part of a climate change rally that lasted several hours and included many other groups protesting coal trains and fracking for oil and gas. The same groups also participated in the Seattle action on February 17,2013 when they had a bullet train for people instead of a coal train.
With people in Turkey and Syria still reeling from Monday’s devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake, many in the art world have united in support of the relief efforts for the disaster. The death toll has now surpassed 22,000, with close to one million people now in need of food amid freezing temperatures.