Creative Time, Social Practice Archive: Brinco is an art project, product, and intervention created by the Argentinean artist Judith Werthein for the 2005 inSITE Biennial held on the border of Tijuana and San Diego. Brinco—Spanish for "jump"—is a specially designed shoe the artist created for illegal migrant workers and immigrants who navigate the border region at night.
The opening lines of this week’s Staff Pick Premiere, “Battleground,” by Kwesi Thomas and Mark Bone examine how skin color has become just that…a battleground. The short captures the particular discomfort of having to argue for one’s value in a society that should care instead of question. Kwesi, a Black man, powerfully conveys these feelings to his co-director Mark, a white man, in the wake of George Floyd’s death last May.
Hair Nah (https://hairnah.com/) is a game created by Momo Pixel, a Black woman who wanted to represent how it feels for people to touch her hair without consent. The game is fun but also impactful, especially with the mechanic of "getting tired" of smacking away hands.
Adrian Piper disguised her identity, changing her race, sex, and social class in order to experiment in public situations and gauge people’s reactions. She investigated how outwardly visible identity markers (like skin color) impacted others’ perceptions of her character. By manipulating her (apparent) identity to produce reactions, she demonstrated the power and influence of stereotypes (Piper, 1996).
From 2005-2010 the Ngapartji Ngapartji project was based out of Alice Springs, working with Pitjantjatjara communities throughout Central Australia.
The project created an online Pitjantjatjara language site, two touring theatre works and a documentary Nothing Rhymes with Ngapartji; http://www.nothingrhymeswithngapartji.com/
ODBK is an activist organization that aims to create a more equal, diverse, inclusive, transparent and democratic art world. ODBK seeks to do this by diversify and increase the number of people who understand and engage with contemporary art.
After a first illegal exhibition on the walls of the Cité des Bosquets, JR settles in the heart of this neighborhood and the neighboring projects of La Forestière, in Clichy-sous-Bois, where the 2005 riots started in the French suburbs.
The first portraits are displayed on the walls of the last popular neighborhoods of the capital, in Eastern Paris.
"Black Lives/White Light and TABLETRIBES, a D.C.-based tech startup, are coupling art and technology to create The Radius Project, which aims to take conversations surrounding Black Lives Matter beyond newsfeeds and comment sections...TABLETRIBES is a social networking app that allows users interested in similar topics to connect with each other offline...Their goal is to globally scale empathy development by developing opportunities for users to e
Grandmas diving for seafood while immigrants wrestle with identity. Scrambling for self-worth in the face of suicide. Rock music in the face of fear. A noir murder mystery. Musings on death.
Without having been commissioned—or even given legal permission at all—Haring set out to create Crack Is Wack on the wall of an abandoned handball court in a park at 2nd Avenue and East 128th Street on June 27, 1986. Upon the completion of the mural, Haring was arrested by the New York City Police Department for vandalism of city property and faced potential jail time in addition to heavy fines.
Artist and activist Favianna Rodriguez recently teamed up with Pharrell Williams' I Am Other YouTube Channel to create a moving new documentary series titled "Migration is Beautiful." Addressing the debate surrounding immigration policy in the United States and the overall perception of immigrants, the three-episode project focuses on the growing influence of artists in the political realm.
The International Harlem Fine Arts Show (HFAS) is the largest traveling African Diasporic art show in the United States. Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, HFAS provides a platform for African Diasporic visionaries and American visual artists to exhibit and sell their artwork. The show also aims to create economic empowerment, educational opportunities and professional recognition within the multicultural community.
Through their podcast, The Dance Union, Melanie Greene and J. Bouey have been confronting racism in the dance world, and highlighting the experiences of Black artists, since 2018. Their episodes cover a variety of topics and issues, ranging from mental health and sexual harassment to advocating for fair pay.
At the same site where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, we lit thousands of candles - one for each signature on our petition - to commemorate the legacy of brave freedom fighters Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner and to stand up for the rights that are once again in peril.
Over the past twenty-five years or so, ever since her spectacular New York début at the Drawing Center, in 1994, the now forty-four-year-old artist Kara Walker’s visual production—sculptures, cutouts, drawings, films—has been diaristic in tone.
Jo’Artis Ratti is sure he looked intimidating to the police officers who were suddenly confronted by his agitated dancing at a California protest Sunday.
“I’m 210 pounds,” said Ratti, 35. “I have tattoos on my neck. I don’t have a passive energy; I’m very enthusiastic. And I know this looks unfamiliar.”
Lil Baby, a popular American rapper, released a song titled "The Bigger Picture" in 2020 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests that took place following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer.
Beyoncé’s album Renaissance is grounded in black queer ballroom culture. It debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard 200 and had the third highest album debut of 2022.
The streets of the Cairo suburb Manshiyat Naser, nicknamed "Garbage City," are lined with trash, and the people who live there — Coptic Christians who make their living sorting through it and recycling anything they can — are called zabaleen, or "garbage people."
In response to white gentrifiers trying to silence go-go music on the corners of Florida Avenue and 7th Avenue, activists and D.C. residents poured into the streets by blasting go-go music and celebrating its rich history within the city. For those unfamiliar, go-go music is at the heart of D.C. culture and features live bands playing covers of, and sometimes original, music with all different types of drums and other percussion instruments.
If you assign no sound to the redaction in I'm Blue (If I Was █████ I Would Die), it has the same amount of syllables as its referent, the first line of the chorus from Eiffel 65's 1999 chart-topping single, I'm Blue. The last word in that line is spelled out "da," but when you listen to Jeffrey Jey's compressed scatting, it sounds more like "die."
In 1996, filmmaker John Akomfrah created the character of the Data Thief as a narrative device to offer an insightful study of Afrofuturism in his film The Last Angel of History, which links Black musicians including George Clinton, Derrick May, and Sun Ra to Akomfrah’s thesis about the role of technological fantasy in Black artistry across genres and mediums.
From Black Power to Migrants’ Power
BY Robin Cembalest POSTED 01/22/13
As ’60s activist art enters museums, a new generation is creating an iconography of protest for today