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2016
despondent apostate

Projects tagged "China"

"Stand Up, Sisters (《姐姐妹妹站起来》)": The Miserable Past of Chinese Prostitutes
Practitioner:
Xihe Chen (陈西禾)
Date:
Jan 1 1951
"Stand Up, Sisters" tells the story of a rural girl who journeys to Beijing for a family visit, only to be deceived and forced into prostitution, suffering unthinkable hardships. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, these women are rehabilitated. The narrative reaches its peak with her and her younger sisters' victorious achievement of self-reliance.
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1
Occupy Men’s Toilets
Practitioner:
Five young feminist activists: Wu Rongrong, Zheng Churan, Wang Man, Wei Tingting, and Li Tingting
Date:
Feb 19 2012
The “Occupy Men’s Toilets” movement, initiated by Chinese feminist activists including Li Tingting (Li Maizi) and Wu Rongrong, emerged in 2012 as a creative, non-violent protest against gender inequality in access to public facilities.
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3
Ai Weiwei’s Colored Vases: Clever Artwork Or Vandalism?
Practitioner:
Ai Weiwei
Date:
Jan 1 2006
Exhibition visitors have expressed feelings of uneasiness or even pain and nostalgia when seeing Colored Vases by Ai Weiwei1. The 51 vases that make up the artwork are originally treasures from the Neolithic Age (5000–3000 BCE) and the artist has dunked them in common industrial paint. Why did Ai Weiwei do it?
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3
China’s Creative Acts of Protest: Memes, Puns and Blank Sheets of Paper
Practitioner:
People of China
Date:
Nov 28 2202
In Shanghai, a vigil grew into a street protest where many held blank sheets of white paper in a symbol of tacit defiance. In Beijing, students at Tsinghua University raised signs showing a math equation devised by the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann, whose surname in Chinese is a homonym for “free man.”
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1
Art as a Mirror: Zhang Huan’s 'Family Tree' and Its Reflections on Cultural Identity
Practitioner:
Zhang Huan
Date:
Oct 11 2000
One of the most critical artists on the contemporary art scene is Zhang Huan. His works are of great social insight and unique in how he applies his artistic expression. He thus makes them an almost visual feast with a peek into the multilevel structure of modern society. One such work is the masterpiece "Family Tree," which shows how art can mould our social cognition through multilayered symbolism and profound imagery.
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3
Tear It Down, They Said. He Just Kept Building.
Practitioner:
Chen Tianming
Date:
Jan 1 2025
The structure teeters over fields of knee-high grass, looking like a cross between a camping tent and a giant wedding cake. Eleven stories of dark red wooden rooms, diminishing in size as they ascend, balance atop one another, seemingly held together by only the thicket of cords that stretches from the peak to the ground.
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2
This Was The Year “Girl’s Day” Really Stopped Being Cute
Practitioner:
Unknown Chinese undergraduates
Date:
Mar 7 2016
“Girl’s Day” in China was supposed to be a way for boys on college campuses to show the girls how much they care. This year it went too far. Have you heard about “Girl’s Day?” It’s a big holiday for Chinese college students. Every year on March 7, students throughout the country celebrate the day as a campus version of International Women’s Day.
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3
Love Queer Cinema Week (aka the Beijing Queer Film Festival)
Practitioner:
Students of Beijing University, Beijing Queer Film Festival commitee
Date:
Dec 1 2001
Founded 19 years ago, the Beijing Queer Film Festival (aka Love Queer Cinema Week) is one of the grassroots film festivals in China focusing on independent queer film screenings and cultural exchange activities. We aim to expand public discussions on sexuality / gender identity / gender expression, we aim to give a platform to sexual and other minorities in China and the World, and we celebrate diversity.
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2
Interwoven Threads: The Art of Community and Sensory Expansion
Practitioner:
Sebastián Mahaluf
Date:
Sep 1 2023
Sebastián Mahaluf stands out as an artist deeply engaged in weaving the complex threads of human connection, community, and the interplay of personal and collective experiences. His notable work, "CONTRADICTION AND TENSION," showcases his approach to art as a participatory experience that bridges individual perceptions with communal narratives.
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1
Tibetan Self-immolation Portraits
Practitioner:
Liu Yi
Date:
Jan 1 2013
Beijing-based artist Liu Yi is working on a series of black-and-white portraits he knows will never be shown in a Chinese gallery. His varied subjects — men and women, young and old, smiling and pensive — have one thing in common: They are Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest repressive Chinese rule.
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2
LGBT activists ask strangers for hugs in China protest at Weibo censorship
Practitioner:
Chinese LGBT activists
Date:
Apr 19 2018
A social experiment testing the public’s reaction to gay people in China has gone viral. The blindfolded activists stood in public wearing T-shirts that said “I’m gay would you hug me?” and video of the protest then spread rapidly on Weibo, a hugely popular social media platform in China. The social experiment follows a recent announcement by Weibo to ban gay content on its platform of 400 million active users.
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4
Street gas chamber
Practitioner:
Brother Nuts
Date:
Sep 27 2016
A minibus is parked on the side of the road with a series of pipelines wrapped around it. One end of the pipeline is connected to the exhaust port of the minibus, and the other end is put into the car, so that the exhaust gas can be directly introduced into the car, forming a " Street gas chamber".
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0
Embracing the Elements: Tong Wenmin's 'FLYING THE WIND' and the Art of Human-Nature Interaction
Practitioner:
Tong Wenmin
Date:
Jan 1 2016
Tong Wenmin is a Chinese performance artist affiliated with works exploring movement, interaction, and humanity. Her art is a relationship between human behavior and the natural world, a round dynamic between physicality and environmental elements. One of her most compelling works, "FLYING THE WIND," is outstanding in merging performance art with a deeper exploration of the interaction between humans and nature.
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1
Bishan Project: Utopia in a Chinese Village
Practitioner:
Ou Ning
Date:
Jun 5 2011
“There are many problems in rural areas. For example, agriculture is declining, no one is farming, traditional things are falling apart, farmers are brainwashed by the idea of urbanization, and they don’t like their hometown. They all want to move to the city.”Activist Ou Ning said. Rural construction is an important issue. As an activist, he chose Bishan village in Anhui, China as the field to start his experiment, which is “Bishan Project”.
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2
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.
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5
Leftover Women
Practitioner:
SK-II
Date:
Apr 6 2016
They are disparaged as “free-willed” women, “stubborn,” “picky,” “incomplete.” But a video by an East Asian beauty brand that went viral over the past week has upended the conversation on China’s sheng nu, which translates literally into “leftover women” — those who happen to be over 27 and unmarried. “People think that in Chinese society an unmarried woman is incomplete. You feel like an outsider,” says one young woman.
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7
Study of Perspective (& Stools)
Practitioner:
Ai Weiwei
Date:
Jan 1 2014
The son of an exiled political dissident, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s work is inherently political. Since 1995 Ai Weiwei has been traveling the world, photographing himself flipping off iconic monuments of power in his Study of Perspective series.
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3
Don't Cover Up, Set Up - Chinese Women Against Domestic Violence
Practitioner:
Justice4her
Date:
Jan 1 2017
The video DON’T COVER UP, STEP UP is a public service announcement raising the issue of gender-based violence. In the video, a vlogger teaches her fans how to cover up bruises with makeup after she has been beaten by her husband. There is a twist in the story as the husband enters the scene at the end of the video.
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2
In China, Myths of Social Cohesion
Practitioner:
Chinese Government
Date:
Aug 18 2014
KASHGAR, China — They come for the camel rides, the chance to dress up like a conquering Qing dynasty soldier or to take selfies in front of one of the most historic Islamic shrines in Xinjiang, the sprawling region in China’s far northwest.
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3
The masked artist protesters in a polluted city of China
Practitioner:
Artists in Chengdu
Date:
Nov 11 2016
In the south-western city of Chengdu, by all accounts a city on the edge coping with heavy pollution but also with authorities scrambling to put a lid on simmering discontent. That night police detained a number of artists who managed to stage a silent demonstration, while wearing face masks.
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0
5 Ways PETA Asia Became an Animal Rights Groundbreaker in China
Practitioner:
PETA Asia
Date:
Dec 2 2016
The world is shocked by China’s dog meat festival and by videos showing that animals are eaten alive in restaurants in Guangdong. But in that country of 1.3 billon people, a massive shift in ideology is happening. Our friends at PETA Asia are helping millions of people see that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.
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6
'Wolf Warrior artist' strives to use new art to spread truth and inspire patriotism
Practitioner:
Wuheqilin
Date:
Jun 18 2020
With delicate composition, striking details and strong emotion, five editorial posters drawn by Wuheqilin have attracted some half million followers to his account on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform. His political views expressed in his art have led to some netizens dubbing him the "Wolf Worrier artist."
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4
Gangnam Style Used in Protests in China
Practitioner:
Chinese construction workers in Wuhan, and people of Henan Provence
Date:
Jan 13 2013
In early January, constructions workers in Wuhan, China staged a Gangnam Style protest in front of their employer's building. Using the Gangnam Style dance, the men sought to bring media attention to their mounting unpaid wages.
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4
Local artist stages demonstration inspired by protesters in China
Practitioner:
Yolanda He Yang
Date:
Dec 11 2022
Late last month, Chinese citizens took up a creative means of protest over the nation’s strict “zero-COVID” policy. In a place with little tolerance for large public demonstrations, protesters have been holding up blank pieces of paper. Their ingenuity inspired a local artist Yolanda He Yang to stage a public art demonstration to subtly communicate their dissent.
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1
Remembering
Practitioner:
Ai Weiwei
Date:
Sep 10 2008
In 2009, the dissident artist created a work to honour the thousands of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake. He recalls how the project, Remembering, angered China’s rulers – and changed his career for ever This is an edited extract from The Start podcast
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