In 2013, a group of ten women incarcerated at York Correctional Institution in Connecticut, calling themselves “Women of York,” created this work of art inspired by Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party. The installation includes six entry banners and ten place settings arranged on a triangular table, each dedicated to a woman of personal significance to the artist.
Paris inaugurates its first fresco, on the Human Rights Wall, in tribute to six contemporary activists. To be discovered in the capital's 12th arrondissement, this XXL work of committed street art is by Mahn Kloix.
The project consists of a small mobile workspace and a micro artist residency program composed by two tiny art studios founded in Oakland. Studio 1 is a solar powered art studio which was built on the back of a flatbed trailer and Studio 2 was built in collaboration with students at Stanford University, both spaces are composed of second-hand materials.
Tranvía Cero is a group of artists from Ecuador who have been creating artistic projects with the aim to empact community lives and change the ideas of art as an exclusive terrain. The describe their goal as a redefinition of art through the social engaging experiences.
Northeast Minneapolis is going to have the first full-fledged water bar of its kind, an establishment where you can sit and drink a variety of local tap waters to your heart’s content. Their delightful motto: “Water is all we have.”
Montreal: The City of Lights
In Canada Alfredo Jaar completed a project referred to as Lights in the City, in 1999. Keep in mind this is considered one of the richest cities in North America. with a large population of homeless individuals. Is there not a way, for such a rich city, to help people in dire need of just basic necessities?
Cosmic Generator presents a network of characters working in nonsensical, and at times absurd, economies. Artist Mika Rottenberg uses footage from actual discount dollar stores in Calexico, CA; Mexicali, Mexico; and Yiwu, China to recreate the imaginary “life” of a product, from its production in the factory to the moment it is sold.
Waterpod™ was a floating, sculptural, eco-habitat designed for the rising tides. It launched in the summer of 2009, navigate down the East River, explore the waters of New York Harbor, and docked at several Manhattan piers on the Hudson River before continuing onward. The Waterpod™ demonstrated future pathways for water -based innovations.
We at "Left Youth ['solid] Kreuzkölln" have been around long enough of this policy and its lousy consequences for us. But how to solve the problem now? The problem is clearly the capitalist society for us. Even at school you will be prepared for competition and profit motive. We say: Stop it!
The manifesto:
Barbie Dream House in Berlin? Not with us!
At Rio+20 we present a bread tank with a garden inside to underline the realistic possibility of eradicating hunger and extreme poverty by redirecting military spending.
Throughout the Lodi district of Milan, Italy, artist Biancoshock has transformed abandoned manholes into miniature subterranean rooms. Beneath the pavement, in vacant maintenance vaults, a cupid painting in a gaudy frame hangs in a tiny pink living room; a boxy kitchen is stocked with pots and pans; and a blue-tiled bathroom is complete with shower and towel.
A performance in support of a bill banning the catch of cetaceans for cultural and educational purposes in Russia. The bill was supposed to pass readings in the lower house of parliament but unfortunately it was postponed; this activity is meant to help generate support for it to pass. The action was timed to coincide with the World Whale and Dolphin Day (Feb 19).
A major exhibition by Ai Weiwei this autumn features a new series of monumental sculptural works in iron, cast from giant tree roots sourced in Brazil during research and production for last year’s survey exhibition, ‘Raiz’, at the Oscar Niemeyer-designed OCA Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo.
Since the beginning of Bulgaria's transition to democracy, the monument’s meaning and future has been the subject of heated debates. Opponents to the monument aren’t happy about the presence of such a dominating foreign army monument in the country that is situated higher and more central than national symbols. In recent years, the monument has turned into a canvas for anonymous political statements on multiple occasions.
The People’s Bank of Govanhill uses social and activist art practices to involve people in re-imagining the local economy, looking at how we can put feminist economics into practice in the local community.
On September 5th, 1991, I put a giant condom over Jesse Helms’ house. Why? Because, as the condom said, “Helms is deadlier than a virus.” Senator Jesse Helms was one of the chief architects of AIDS-related stigma in the U.S. He fought against any federal spending on HIV research, treatment or prevention.
If you're a bibliophile you'll get a kick out of the car-turned-library that can be found in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Artist Raul Lemesoff took an old 1979 Ford Falcon, a popular mode of transport amongst the military forces of its time, and transformed it into a mobile library shaped like a tank.
The Milk Truck is a combination of guerrilla theatre, activism and slapstick humour. When a woman finds herself in a situation where she is discouraged, harassed, or unwelcome to breastfeed her baby in public, she contacts The Milk Truck. The truck summons social media supporters and arrives to the location of the woman in need, providing her with a shelter for feeding her baby.
You enter a narrow corridor where backlit Plexiglas panels offer three compelling narratives about whiteness and blindness: Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment and hard labor in Robben Island’s limestone quarry under a blinding sun; Bill Gates’ purchase of the Bettmann and United Press International archives, consisting of 17 million images, and their subsequent burial deep underground in a limestone vault for the sake of preservation, after Gates’s company C
Greenpeace advocates displayed a banner outside of the Ministry of the Environment in Warsaw. The banner reads "I love primeval forests" to protest against tree felling in Bialowieza Forest.
Protesters dressed as construction workers wearing hard hats and scaling the Ministry of the Environment building on harnesses.
Visible Distance / Second Sight is an art installation by Jennifer Bolande for DesertX. The temporary artwork can be found along the Gene Autry Trail near Vista Chino (33°50’41.70”N 116°30’21.02”W), where a series of consecutive billboards have been replaced by perfectly aligned photos of the landscapes they are blocking.
From the DesertX project page:
Civil activists set up a giant loaf of bread on the small square of a bus stop near the Cathedral Store in Center to remind passersbys that a large number of their fellow citizens live below the poverty threshold.
Women to the Front: Perspectives on Equality, Gender, and Activism is an exhibit that showcases 15 female artists with ties to Utah who infuse their art with activism. The exhibit commemorates the centennial of the 19th Amendment and the 150th anniversary of the first vote cast by a woman in Utah.
Imagine walking into a silent room where a woman is mending. Now imagine that she's sitting underneath 1,500 pairs of sharp Chinese scissors that are suspended from the ceiling, precariously pointed downwards. This was the idea behind The Mending Project by Beili Liu.