In 2013, Ghana ThinkTank received a Creative Capital Award for Emerging Fields, enabling them to begin the multi-year ThinkTank at the Border project. In this project, they are collecting problems from civilian border patrols like the Minutemen, "Patriot" groups, and Nativist organizations, and bringing them to be solved by think tanks of undocumented workers in San Diego and recently deported immigrants in Tijuana.
On July 4, 2012, several members of MicCheckWallSt, a subsidiary group of Seattle's larger Occupy Wall Street that formed in December, 2011, anonymously checked into a room at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Downtown Seattle.
Design4Peace is a collection of political posters created by Leslie Dwyer. Images speak to issues of war and peace, prisons, solidarity and movement, immigration, economy and class, violence against women, ecology, agriculture, racism, and gender. Leslie works with movement and educational organizations, such as Veterans for Peace and Teaching for Change to support their work visually.
Josep Renau Berenguer was a Spanish painter, photomontager, muralist and communist militant.
Renau was the son of an Art teacher. Due to his father’s low income, he had to work various jobs during his youth and teenage years to maintain a middle class position.
Singaporean artist Lee Wen’s series Journey of a Yellow Man (1992–2012), one of his most famous and long-standing performances, was not simply a personal affront, it was a political affront. At the intersection of Asian art history, critical race theory, and migration and diasporic studies, one is never far (enough away) from the chromatic framing of race and ethnicity: yellow race, yellow peril, yellow face, the forever foreigner.
New York artist Donna Choi wanted to create a “weird, memorable way” to discuss fetishization of Asian women, so she put together a satirical series about how to diagnose Yellow Fever—the specific obsession many Western men have with Asian culture.
The over-the-top series is a discussion of race crafted for the attention span of the Internet.
I emailed with Choi about her thinking behind the Yellow Fever series.
Josh Keyes is a contemporary artist who takes a "satirical look at the impact urban sprawl has on the environment and surmises, with the aid of scientific slices and core samples, what could happen if we continue to infiltrate and encroach on our rural surroundings."
A Côte d'Ivoire-based artist, known as Kadarick, draws on the fantastical powers of The Hulk, Spiderman and Wonder Woman to articulate today's fears.
In a new pop-art series of 23 paintings titled Joker, the self-taught painter explores pop culture, politics, mass media and capitalism. The series was recently on display at the LouiSimone Guirandou Gallery in Abidjan.
The user muchachafanzine on instagram is an activist who writes a "decolonial native xicana feminist fanzine". They are an online activist and they spread their message through their page, the zine, and through merchandise. Daisy Salinas began Muchacha Fanzine as a feminist punk zine in 2011. Over the years, Muchacha has grown into a larger, submission-based compilation of work by marginalized voices from around the world.
A new comic book with a female rape survivor as its "super hero" has been launched to focus attention on the problem of sexual violence in India.
Priya's Shakti, inspired by Hindu mythological tales, tells the story of Priya, a young woman and gang-rape survivor, and Goddess Parvati as they fight against gender crimes in India.
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.
Seattle Times:
In 1921, just four years after the Bolshevik Revolution, American journalist Albert Rhys Williams wrote: “The visitor to Russia is struck by the multitude of posters — in factories and barracks, on walls and railway-cars, on telegraph poles — everywhere.”
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."
The rise in feminism and feminist advocacy has changed history forever in terms of how women are viewed and treated in society. Though great progress has been made, women are still fighting for their rights even today. Abortion and body vulnerability are just two issues that are still being confronted and fought for in the public view.
Last September, Fusion commissioned artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, 29, to travel to Mexico City and create an installation of her highly-acclaimed art project protesting street harassment, “Stop Telling Women to Smile.” Fazlalizadeh’s visit to Mexico was her first to the country; it was also the first time the STWTS project — for which Fazlalizadeh papers city streets with hand-drawn portraits of women pushing back against their street harassers — had eve
Kwentong Bayan: Labour of Love is a community based comic book project, created by Toronto-based artists Althea Balmes (Illustrator) and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo (Writer) in close collaboration with caregivers and supporters, about the real life stories of Filipina migrant workers in the Live-in Caregiver Program.
In a massive act of ‘brand vandalism’ just two days before the launch of the UN COP21 Climate Conference, 600 anti-advertisement posters have been installed in outdoor media spaces throughout the streets of Paris. The posters display artwork from over 80 artists from 19 different countries, including big names such as Banksy-collaborator Paul Insect, Alex One, Know Hope, Escif, Cleon Peterson, Hyuro, Jimmy Cauty, Ron English and many others.
This has been a racially-charged year. How one challenges the status quo is an individual choice and many opt for artistic expression. Artistic expression can personified most visually on the body and while black pride tees are big, nail art is just as big and just as communicative.
Leilei Zhang was harassed on a public bus when a man gripped her hand, glared at her and refused to let go. With the determination to raise public awareness, Leilei began a crowd-funding campaign to raise money for what could have been China's first public anti-sexual harassment advertisement. She approached the authorities of her home city, Guangzhou, but it did not want to take on the advertising for fear it would panic the public.
On November 13, 2012, Joey Skaggs dressed up as Santa Claus and rode a three-wheeler to the United Nations in New York, NY. Skaggs’ bike was equipped with a fake mobile rocket launcher and a sign that read “ Peace on earth, or else!” A group of elves also accompanied Santa to the UN, and they alternated between handing out green toy soldiers to bystanders and singing their altered version of Jingle Bells, as seen below: