Projects tagged "Labor"

Conquest
Practitioner:
Pope.L
Date:
Sep 21 2019
Conquest is a compelling new collective performance conceived by acclaimed artist Pope.L (b. Newark, 1955). It is inspired by his iconic solo crawls, where the artist dragged himself across a number of different urban landscapes. Navigating the streets and parks of Downtown Manhattan, Conquest extends this irreverent and provocative forty-year tradition of public performance with an ambitious group crawl involving over 140 volunteers.
Mayday Space
Practitioner:
Mayday Space
Date:
Jan 1 2016
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.
The True Cost
Practitioner:
Andrew Morgan
Date:
Apr 24 2015
The True Cost is a 2015 documentary film directed by Andrew Morgan that focuses on fast fashion. It discusses several aspects of the garment industry from production—mainly exploring the life of low-wage workers in developing countries—to its after-effects such as river and soil pollution, pesticide contamination, disease and death.
Living and Killing in Modern China: "A Touch of Sin"
Practitioner:
Zhangke Jia (贾樟柯)
Date:
May 17 2013
"May you live in interesting times" is the familiar Chinese saying, usually spat out as a curse. You can see why in "A Touch of Sin," a film by renowned director Jia Zhang-ke. That kind of time is now, in the history of his country. With four vignettes inspired by real-life "ripped from the headline" events, he shows what the great economic expansion of China is doing to the majority of its people.
A Haunting Artistic Tribute to Garment Workers Killed in Bangladesh and the US
Practitioner:
Artist Rachel Breen, Poet Alison Morse
Date:
Apr 1 2018
NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Exactly 1,281 white garments hang from the ceiling of the Perlman Teaching Museum’s Braucher Gallery. The collared shirts, knit sweaters, tights, and other items of clothing glow with an eerie luminosity.
‘Memorial’
Practitioner:
Cheril Linnett and woman activists
Date:
Mar 8 2020
Cheril Linett is a female artist from Chile, with a background in performance art and stage performance, who primarily focuses her artwork on feminist issues in Chile, especially ones involving violence, murder, hate crime and different kinds of oppression and assault, but also creates artwork reflecting issues in other parts of Latin America.
Naming the Lost Memorials
Practitioner:
Naming the Lost, Make the Road, CityLore, Great Small Works, Fund Excluded Workers coalition, artists around the country, folklorists around the country
Date:
May 25 2020
In May 2020, a team of artists, activists, folklorists, and people who lost loved ones to Covid-19 came together to make monthly memorial sites in New York City to remember victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. They continued installing memorials around New York City every month during the summer of 2020.
French Farmers Throw Sh*t Fit
Practitioner:
FNSEA (National Federation of Agricultural Holders' Unions)
Date:
Dec 18 2023
"Energy costs surged with the Feb. 2022 launch by Russia of full-scale war in Ukraine and hit hard for farmers reliant on tractors, harvesters and other fuel-guzzling equipment. Prices also soared for other inputs that underpin intensive farming, notably fertilizers. French farmers were already struggling to compete in the increasingly globalized economy.
A Night Of Philosophy And Ideas
Practitioner:
various
Date:
Jan 27 2018
"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.
呼吸之痛 The Pain of Breath
Practitioner:
Date:
Sep 11 2018
Pneumoconiosis has become the most serious occupational disease in China, and the vast majority of sufferers, nearly 6 million, are migrant workers. Because of the long-term inhalation of dust caused by pulmonary fibrosis, they usually breathing if not oxygen machine help, easy to suffocate.
Art, Advocacy, and Action: Luke Ching's Crusade for Labor Rights in Hong Kong
Practitioner:
Luke Ching Chin Wai
Date:
Jan 1 2024
Luke Ching Chin Wai is a conceptual artist and labour-artivist in Hong Kong. Since 2013, he has worked undercover in different low-paid jobs in the city, including as a security guard, supermarket cashier worker, and metro cleaner to learn about poor people's working conditions. He then uses these experiences to create art and push for improved labour rights.
Fit For Work
Practitioner:
Void One
Date:
Jan 1 2018
Graffiti art is particularly viewed as a powerful form of social protest, and the (illegal) act of defacing can be as important as the message itself. Artist Void One has been arrested on numerous occasions for his politically-charged interventions. “I didn’t set out to make political art but art is a platform where I can vent my frustrations” – Void One.
Rat Row
Practitioner:
Laborers Local 79
Date:
Jan 7 2025
A fat cat, a pig wearing a top hat and five rats. All seven inflatables faced the 34th Street entrance of the Empire State Building last Thursday, two weeks into a protest by members of Laborers Local 79 who rallied, hundreds strong, in the afternoon shadow of the props.
Horrible bosses: masked activists publicly shame businesses in Bologna
Practitioner:
Il Padrone di Merda
Date:
Oct 1 2019
On a warm summer afternoon in the Italian city of Bologna, a group of around 15 young people march through the crowded city centre to a high-end pastry shop in Strada Maggiore.
Dismaland
Practitioner:
Banksy
Date:
Aug 20 2015
“He describes it as a “family theme park unsuitable for small children” – and with the Grim Reaper whooping it up on the dodgems and Cinderella horribly mangled in a pumpkin carriage crash, it is easy to see why. Banksy’s new show, Dismaland, which opened on Thursday on the Weston-super-Mare seafront, is sometimes hilarious, sometimes eye-opening and occasionally breathtakingly shocking.
Pimp My Carroça
Practitioner:
The Pimp My Carroça Project, Mundano
Date:
Jun 10 2012
With the intention of recognizing the work of the Latin American carreteros (garbage pickers) that collect recyclable materials in wheel carts, and increase environmental consciousness, artist Mundano created “Pimp My Carroça"
Can’t Help Myself
Practitioner:
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Date:
Dec 29 2016
In 2016, the Guggenheim Museum commissioned its very first robotic artwork called Can’t Help Myself (Wannmann, 2016). The artwork is created by two of China’s most controversial artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu and can be described as a robotic arm that has one specific, life-long duty: to prevent the deep-red, bloodlike liquid, which constantly oozes outwards, from straying too far (Weng, n.d.).
LEGOVC
Practitioner:
iancooketal
Date:
Feb 22 2018
LEGOVC is a fictional, made up, 100% fake, plastic, 'pantomime villain' Vice Chancellor of a fake British University struggling as his utter managerial brilliance crumbles in the face of sustained strike action by his staff after their pension scheme is slashed.
STITCHING TOGETHER: GARMENT WORKERS IN SOLIDARITY
Practitioner:
Taslima Akhter, Magnum Foundation
Date:
Sep 12 2018
On April 24, 2013, more than 1,000 lives were taken in the Rana Plaza Collapse. While history remembers this tragic event as the deadliest garment factory accident, activist and photographer Taslima Akhter reveals a story of dreams crushed by structural murder. Dedicating her career to the lives and struggles of garment workers in Bangladesh, she has continued to foster a community rallying together for safer working conditions.
A Handmaid’s Tale of Protest
Practitioner:
women's rights activists
Date:
Jun 25 2017
In state capitals and street protests, women’s rights activists have been wearing red robes and white bonnets based on “The Handmaid's Tale,” the 1985 novel that is now a series on Hulu. Silent, heads bowed, the activists in crimson robes and white bonnets have been appearing at demonstrations against gender discrimination and the infringement of reproductive and civil rights.
The Hong Kong Artist Who Got Fired From McDonald’s
Practitioner:
Luke Ching
Date:
Feb 22 2025
On a recent eight-hour shift at a McDonald’s in Hong Kong, Luke Ching, 52, wiped tables, cleared trays of half-eaten fries, emptied cups of soda and milk tea and lugged bulging trash bags to the dumpster. For him, the main goal of the part-time work was not making ends meet. It was research for his main pursuit: using art to advocate for better treatment of people in menial jobs in a city with one of the widest income gaps in the world.
@muchachafanzine
Practitioner:
muchachafanzine
Date:
Jan 1 2011
The user muchachafanzine on instagram is an activist who writes a "decolonial native xicana feminist fanzine". They are an online activist and they spread their message through their page, the zine, and through merchandise. Daisy Salinas began Muchacha Fanzine as a feminist punk zine in 2011. Over the years, Muchacha has grown into a larger, submission-based compilation of work by marginalized voices from around the world.
Ace Bank
Practitioner:
Liat Berdugo
Date:
Oct 1 2006
ACE Bank was a hoax bank developed as part of a bigger campaign by Netwerk Vlaanderen, a Belgian organization concerned with banks’ responsibilities for what they invest in. ACE bank was an elaborate deception, with a headquarters in central Brussels, parodying other banks. It claimed to be investigating whether there was a market for its special way of doing business.
Tatlin's Whisper #6
Practitioner:
Tania Bruguera
Date:
Mar 1 2009
This is the sixth piece of the series Tatlin’s Whisper which examines the relationship between apathy and anaesthetization of the images in the mass media. This series intends to activate images, well-known because of having been repeatedly seen in the press, but are here decontextualized from the original event that gave way to the news and staged as realistically as possible in an art institution.
Amazon May Day Strike
Practitioner:
Amazon Employees
Date:
May 1 2020
Essential workers at major companies like Amazon, Instacart, and Target across the United States on Friday protested for better safety protections, working conditions, and pay during the coronavirus pandemic.

Pages