Projects tagged "Europe"

"That's not art it's Victorian porn!" - how one small Barbie doll took on the art world
Practitioner:
Sarah Williamson
Date:
Feb 10 2020
Museums and art galleries are not usually the sites of feminist political protest. Yet over the past couple of years, before the lockdown, gallery visitors all over the UK had noticed a small, determined activist whose modus operandi is “Small signs, big questions, fabulous wardrobe”.
Men in Grey
Practitioner:
Men in Grey
Date:
Aug 27 2010
From Media Facades Festival website:
A Gift for Amsterdam
Practitioner:
Op de Valreep and The Yes Men
Date:
Jan 7 2012
In the summer of 2011, squatters take over an unused building, once an animal shelter, and begin renovating it into a social and cultural center for a neighborhood on the outskirts of Amsterdam. They call it Op de Valreep ("in the nick of time").
TRANSummer Camp and the Ethical Clinic for Gender and Sex Characteristics
Practitioner:
Arian Kajtezovic & Trans Mreža Balkan
Date:
Oct 29 2017
The TRANSummer Camp on the Croatian coast inspired members of the Croation trans community to become creative activists, and led to a public media campaign, video series and event advertising the “opening” of a (fake) clinic for trans health. The project included an ambitious survey on the healthcare experiences and needs of trans and gender variant people in the Balkans in multiple languages.
'Once in a generation moment' — Zelensky, Ukraine's partners gather for key London summit after White House fallout
Practitioner:
Martin Fornusek
Date:
Mar 2 2025
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and other top Western officials gathered on March 2 for a London summit to discuss support for Kyiv.
Iaioflautas
Practitioner:
gente mayor
Date:
May 15 2011
Los iaioflautas son un grupo heterogéneo y variable de personas mayores. Surgen al calor de las Acampadas que proliferearon en el Estado español en mayo del 2011. En su manifiesto se definen así:
Racy offer
Practitioner:
Charlotte Roche
Date:
Nov 14 2010
Protests continue at Gorleben nuclear waste storage facility Demonstrations against the German government's nuclear power policy continued as protesters marched near the Gorleben waste storage site. But one provocative author came up with a racier way to block a nuclear power law. Protestors near Gorleben Protests near Gorleben have died down but not stopped
Iva Hladis: Origins Extinct
Practitioner:
Iva Hladis
Date:
Sep 10 2005
Iva Hladis was born in Czechoslovakia in 1965. ​In 2005 her attention turned to the issue of global warming and world destruction with a new series of artworks titled “Origins Extinct”; assemblages of used computer chipboards, real botanicals, bugs, Czech glass beads, found objects, wires and pearls.
Suite Venitienne
Practitioner:
Sophie Calle
Date:
Jan 1 1979
Sophie Calle's works discuss the issue of "privacy", the composition of an individual's identity at the social level, and the relationship between "private" and "public/group/society", including personal information, personal records, public surveillance, and other topics. An obvious feature of her works is the unique and extremely subjective criteria of judgment and reference for measurement.
Ella Daish's Giant Tampon
Practitioner:
Ella Daish
Date:
Sep 30 2020
Environmental activist Ella Daish has created a giant tampon applicator as part of a protest against single-use plastic. The piece is made out of period plastic found polluting beaches, waterways, and local ecosystems in the UK. Daish sourced 1,200 applicators from 15 different locations across the United Kingdom. Of the plastic applicators collected for the project, 87.5 percent came from one brand, Tampax.
We have to get beyond the shame’: Women of the World launches festival against sexual violence
Practitioner:
in partnership with Birkbeck, University of London, will see national, international and grassroots organisations and charities join forces with local artists and leading voices to address the global crisis of violence against women and sexual assault.
Date:
Nov 27 2021
Gender equality charity Women of the World (WOW) is launching a one-day festival of activism that invites people from all generations, genders and backgrounds to take part in conversations around sexual violence.
Potatoe Walkout
Practitioner:
Peter Pink
Date:
Mar 31 2013
"Potatoe Walkout" is a series of art installations located outside public food venues, featuring potatoes and cucumbers outfitted in sunglasses, picket signs, umbrellas, and other objects (depending on the depicted scene, which varies). Some scenes represent protest, others represent army battles, and other represent acts of crucifixion.
Tate Modern considers activists' wind turbine for art collection
Practitioner:
artists objecting to the gallery's sponsorship by oil company BP is being considered for the national art collection.
Date:
Jul 7 2012
Tate Modern considers activists' wind turbine for art collection: Liberate Tate, an art collective who object to BP sponsorship, have offered the 16 metre turbine blade to the gallery A 1.5 tonne, 16.5 metre-long wind turbine blade carried last month to the Tate Modern by artists objecting to the gallery's sponsorship by oil company BP is being considered for the national art collection.
Björk and Environmental Activism
Practitioner:
Björk
Date:
Apr 5 2015
"In a world where artists do themselves no financial favours by voicing critical political sentiments, Björk’s iconoclastic position and perspective is almost unique. Despite having made zero concessions to commerciality in her music, she has sold millions of albums, and remains as vital today as she was a quarter of a century ago.
Cookie Monster Golden Biscuit Ransom
Practitioner:
The Cookie Monster (Krümel Monster)
Date:
Jan 15 2013
Thief steals 44 lb golden cookie from the world-renowned Bahlsen Cookie Headquarters in Hanover, Germany earlier this January. Under the guise of Sesame Street's beloved Cookie Monster, the thief sent the headquarters a ransom note demanding cookies be donated to a children's hospital in Hanover. As plain cookies simply would not suffice, the Cookie Monster demands cookies of the milk chocolate variety.
This Clothing Line Tricks AI Cameras Without Covering Your Face
Practitioner:
Cap_able
Date:
Jan 20 2023
A start-up has launched a line of clothing that confuses artificial intelligence (AI) cameras and stops them from recognizing the wearer. Italian start-up Cap_able is offering its first collection of knitted garments that shields the wearer from the facial recognition software in AI cameras without the need to cover their face. Called the Manifesto Collection, the clothing line includes hoodies, pants, t-shirts, and dresses.
Fur in Madrid: Controversy and Critique
Practitioner:
Animanaturalis
Date:
Jan 21 2020
During a cold January morning in 2020, Animanaturalis, a nonprofit group focused on ending the suffering of animals across Spain and Latin America gathered to protest the use, production, and sale of fur in Spain. In a blog post on their website, the group discusses the horrid living conditions on fur farms as well as statistics and alternatives related to fur sales (Animanaturalis, n.d.).
Lambrakis LivZ
Practitioner:
Stefanos Mondelos, Spyros Zoupanos, Nafsika Tzanou
Date:
Oct 20 2012
The performance, “Lambrakis LivZ”, concerns the re-enactment of the political speech of Grigoris Lambrakis given in Athens in 1962. Grigoris Lambrakis was a peace-activist, assassinated by a paramilitary plot on June 1963 at Thessaloniki, Greece.
United States v. One Book Named Ulysses
Practitioner:
Bennet Cerf, Morris Ernst
Date:
Dec 6 1933
In 1932, Bennett Cerf, cofounder of Random House Publishing, acquired the rights to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses in the United States, believing that the book would be as successful as it had been throughout Europe. But Cerf had a problem. The book was banned in the United States and would be seized as soon as it came off the printing press, which would lose Cerf millions of dollars.
Feminists Paper Paris With Stark Posters Decrying Domestic Abuse
Practitioner:
Les Colleuses/ The Gluers
Date:
Sep 11 2020
A widespread but illegal campaign by a group calling itself “the Gluers” uses posters to denounce violence against women. It has become an effective — and ubiquitous — tool to raise awareness. On a recent mild night, a squad of four young women wandered through a peaceful neighborhood in eastern Paris, armed with a bucket of glue, a paintbrush and backpacks loaded with posters.
Fit For Work
Practitioner:
Void One
Date:
Jan 1 2018
Graffiti art is particularly viewed as a powerful form of social protest, and the (illegal) act of defacing can be as important as the message itself. Artist Void One has been arrested on numerous occasions for his politically-charged interventions. “I didn’t set out to make political art but art is a platform where I can vent my frustrations” – Void One.
Operación Lola Flores
Practitioner:
Gila Grupo de Intervención
Date:
Nov 14 2012
"Si una peseta diera cada español, pero no a mí, sino a donde tienen que que darla, quizás saldría de la deuda" (Lola Flores)
'0 to 1939 in 3 seconds’: Why Anti-Elon Musk Satire Is Flourishing in Britain
Practitioner:
Center for Political Beauty and others
Date:
Apr 5 2025
The mischievous posters began appearing all over London in the past two months. On the side of an East London bus stop, one of them shows Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, emerging from a Tesla’s roof with his hand pointing upward in a straight-armed salute. “Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,” the ad reads. “Tesla. The Swasticar.”
"Human Cost" Oily Protest at the Tate
Practitioner:
Liberate Tate
Date:
Apr 20 2011
On the one-year anniversary of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, artist-activists at Liberate Tate staged a guerrilla performance in the Tate Britain galleries to highlight the museum's ties to BP.
Artist Rufina Bazlova uses embroidery as a form of ‘gentle protest’
Practitioner:
Rufina Bazlova
Date:
Jan 1 2020
Rufina Bazlova is not afraid to surrender her art to activism. Born in Belarus, a former Soviet republic ruled by the authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko for 29 years now, Bazlova knows all too well that being apolitical is a privilege many Eastern Europeans cannot afford. 2020 was a pivotal year for Belarus, not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic but also the presidential elections, which declared Lukashenko president for the sixth time.

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