I was 24 years old. We were in danger. The Israeli planes were flying raids overhead. And I was designing posters." Hosni Radwan won't easily forget the conditions in the Beirut offices of the PLO Information Department, as an exhibition of the work it produced opens in London.
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.
Song Byeok is one of the most acclaimed Korean artists living today. He is from North Korea, where he was a propaganda artist for the North Korean government for two decades. After defecting in 2002, Byeok has turned his prolific creativity into powerful, satirical art using North Korea’s ruling culture as motifs.
As the world watches Cairo burn, I can’t help but think that the flames of protest engulfing Egypt were sparked by Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on December 17 after police confiscated his vegetable cart. The desperation that he expressed through his act of self-immolation caught on, literally, and spread across the country, into Algeria, and now to Egypt.
Mass media using propaganda to brainwash citizens. Confusion and ignorance causing a divide. People rising up against an oppressive government. Humans being torn between rage and love. These are the themes of Green Day’s widely successful 2004 album, “American Idiot.” These themes still sound familiar. Nearly two decades later, the world, especially the United States, faces these same issues.
Shine, written by Stoneman Douglas students Sawyer Garrity and Andrea Peña in response to the tragic shooting at their school on February 14, 2018 to inspire unity, hope, and change. MSD alum Brittani Kagan collaborated with students and faculty to create this music video to honor the victims and the school.
In “Speech/Acts,” a group exhibition organized by Meg Onli at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Tiona Nekkia McClodden stood out as artists who take up voices, histories, and experiences that can help audiences move forward and endure in the future.
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 Protest Banner Lending Library is a space for people to gain skills to learn to make their own banners, a communal sewing space where we support each other’s voices, and a place where people can check out handmade banners to use in protests.
The New Culture Movement was initiated by Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Cai Yuanpei, Qian Xuan and other writers who had received Western education (called the new-style education at the time). It is an ideological and cultural innovation and literary revolutionary movement.
Myanmar has been engulfed in protest since February 1, when Burmese army general Min Aung Hlaing seized control of the government in a military coup, refusing to accept the landslide election victory of the National League for Democracy and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
By Maha ElNabawi
It was a landmark day when prominent women’s rights activist Doria Shafiq bravely led a march of 1,500 women to storm the gates of Parliament on 19 February 1951. After several hours of unrelenting protest, Shafiq was finally received inside the office, where the council agreed to consider the demands of Egyptian women.
After J.Cole posted a song that implies that Noname can get her message across to a wider audience if she changes her tone, she releases another song in response. However, instead of explicitly responding to his critique, she uses the controversy to shed light on the death of Black female activist Oluwatoyin Salau, who was killed by her assaulter.
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.
Just weeks after activists staged an alternative tour of the American Museum of Natural History to call for its removal, among other things, the equestrian statue of Teddy Roosevelt was vandalized early Thursday morning.
Counterspace is an independent curatorial platform functioning as the first decolonial thinktank mapping cultural activism worldwide. It shapes collectively decolonial toolkits with common tools and resources, and a global directory browsable by continent, praxis, and social construct, as a Beuys-inspired ‘social sculpture’ revisited, and an alternative map of the universe.
"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.
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 March 1939, a 23-year-old Billie Holiday walked up to the mic at West 4th's Cafe Society in New York City to sing her final song of the night. Per her request, the waiters stopped serving and the room went completely black, save for a spotlight on her face.
It can be important to reflect on the artistic recounts of activists experiences under state imprisonment. In a revealing interview with Artspace, Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei reflects on his 81-day secret detention in 2011 and the psychological strategies used to dismantle identity and autonomy.
As the No. 59 bus hurtled down Ratchadamnoen Klang road in Bangkok's Old Town, its passengers diverted their attention from the intense midday heat to a small crowd on the concrete below. About 25 people were marching and chanting, photographers scuttling in front of them.
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.