"I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we'll turn the world...INSIDE OUT."
– JR, TED2011
This week's Swede of the Week is Tomas Gunnarsson, whose quest to find Sweden's "Sexist of the Year" has found a viral following across the country. He says Swedes who buy into the 'most equal country in the world' label are delusional.
Who was the most sexist person in Sweden in 2013?
The Strangers Project is a celebration of the stories we’re surrounded with every day—both from the strangers we share our space with every day, and our own stories we carry. It’s about a connection with ourselves, with people around us, and with something greater than ourselves.
Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism
Buy land – they aren’t making it any more,’ quipped Mark Twain. It’s a maxim that would certainly serve you well in a game of Monopoly, the bestselling board game that has taught generations of children to buy up property, stack it with hotels, and charge fellow players sky-high rents for the privilege of accidentally landing there.
The global response to COVID-19 has made clear that the fear of contracting disease has an ugly cousin: xenophobia. As the coronavirus has spread from China to other countries, anti-Asian discrimination has followed closely behind, manifesting in plummeting sales at Chinese restaurants, near-deserted Chinatown districts and racist bullying against people perceived to be Chinese.
Gregg Segal -- a California-based artist who is known for using the medium of photography to explore culture with the "sensibility of a sociologist" -- travelled around the world asking kids to keep a journal of everything they ate in a week. Once the week was up, Segal made a portrait of the child with the food arranged around them:
After winning the TED Prize on March 2, 2011, the French-artist JR launched the Inside Out Project, in his first TED Talk. Using his own artistic practice as inspiration, this participatory platform helps individuals and communities to make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces. Through their “Actions,” communities around the world have sparked collaborations and conversations.
The Quilt was conceived in November of 1985 by long-time human rights activist, author and lecturer Cleve Jones. Since the 1978 assassinations of gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, Jones had helped organize the annual candlelight march honoring these men. While planning the 1985 march, he learned that over 1,000 San Franciscans had been lost to AIDS.