On Friday night, as U.S. television screens burned with images of peaceful protests turning violent, Nike released a new socially conscious ad calling on Americans to do something quite different than the brand’s usual call to “Just Do It.” Instead, one of the nation’s leading athletic apparel companies called on individuals to not turn their back on the painful issue of racism in the United States.
Two climate change activists targeted an Emily Carr painting at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Saturday.
In a social media post by the account Stop Fracking Around on Twitter, a video shows two activists dousing a painting with an unknown liquid that is said to be maple syrup per the tweet.
The two activists then apparently glued themselves to the wall underneath the painting.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, two Chicago-based organizations, For the People Artists Collective and Chicago Community Bond Fund, worked together to create Decarcerate Now, a virtual quilt honoring individuals who died of COVID-19 while in the custody of the Cook County Jail (CCJ).
For the past 20 years, Great Bend school district art teachers have been letting their students collaborate on an art project at the Barton County Historical Society Museum. This year, they will ground their efforts in working together to make a mural. Their teachers are trying to instill the fact that art builds community, as it has here for the past two decades.
In the mid early 2000s, religious advocates tried a new strategy: promoting the theory of “intelligent design” to be taught in schools. As the Kansas School Board considered the argument, Prophet Bobby Henderson saw an opportunity. His now famous, “Open Letter to the Kansas School Board” began:
In 2011, a video displaying fashion designer and former lead designer at Dior, John Galliano, shouting anti-Semitic remarks, went viral on the internet, leading to his subsequent dismissal from Dior and the subsequent defamation of his career. Nonetheless, Parsons at the New School extended Galliano an offer to teach a specialized design seminar, which was scheduled to begin this year.
Throughout the weekend, big box stores across the country were stocked with an unexpected item: “The Justice Kavanaugh Boof Kit.” The item, an alcohol enema kit (known as “boofing” or “butt chugging”), appeared on dozens of retailer’s shelves over the weekend in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Detroit. Some of the stores included Walmart, Target, Bevmo and other major super market chains.
The Dreamland Artist Club project was named after one of the famous amusement parks in Coney Island. The project consisted of more than 25 artists coming together to repaint rides and make custom signs, murals and scenic backdrops for the legendary neighborhood. Most of the artists that participated in this project were from New York City and therefore had a particular interest in the visual culture of the city.
School Girls Unite started as a community-based pilot program in the Washington, D.C. area in 2004. An intergenerational team included 12-year-old girls and young African women who joined together with the Youth Activism Project. A natural link existed with Mali because two of the founding members of School Girls Unite are from this West African country.
UNLESS by Stephanie Cardon is a vibrant floor-to-ceiling installation that fills the main entryway of Boston’s landmark Prudential Center. Commissioned by Boston Properties and curated and produced by Now + There, UNLESS explores sustainability, climate justice, and how taking action together can create positive change.
When Bay Area activists Moms 4 Housing began their campaign, they were fighting gentrification and institutional poverty. Now, as California's housing crisis compounds during the COVID-19 pandemic, their work has taken on new significance.
User @ArmoredSuperHeavy on Twitter recently posted a master document detailing their explorations into bookbinding, fanfiction preservation, and the online gift economy. Their bookbinding venture, named Dead Dove Publishing, is a project that seeks to preserve and legitimize fanworks and celebrate the fandom gift economy. The document explains their actions and the work they have done since they began two years ago.
One of the oldest forms of human expression is art, so it’s no surprise that art is constantly used to critique another of humanity’s oldest practices, violence and war. In the world of art activism, the power of creativity and innovation has been used to create commentary about war since the beginning of time. Art that speaks out against the atrocities of violent conflict embodies empathy, care, and a plethora of other human emotions.
Will Work for Empty Wallets is a community outreach project dedicated to the millions of unemployed United States Citizens. Over 3,000 empty wallets were collected nationwide with the help of the Georgia Department of Labor to construct an 11'x21' American flag. Over 1200 wallets were used in the construction; each containing a unique empty wallet story about economic hardships.
On December 2014 I've been artist in residence at MANY MINI RESIDENCY a short-term residency program organized by Sarrita Hunn and Ryan Thayer and hosted by GYB BYG in Mexico City. During my 12 hour residency I’ve worked on the case of the 43 students from Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa who went missing while in the custody of Iguala’s police force in September 2014.
Flushing Creek is so hidden by industrial sites and highways, it’s almost invisible to those passing through the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. “I lived in Flushing my whole life and didn’t know that I lived near waterways until I was 20 years old,” Cody Ann Herrmann told Hyperallergic.
Energy BBDO launches its latest activation on behalf of Change The Ref, a leading gun-control organisation which was formed to empower our Future Leaders.
The activation, ‘New Recruits’ is Change the Refs latest effort to ignite a movement to ban ‘weapons of war’. The event took place last Saturday in Montclair NJ and was hosted by Manuel and Patricia Oliver.
In the 20th century India's Mahatma Gandhi famously used the hunger strike as political protest. In America today we demonstrate by eating fast food.
Call it an “eat-in,” call it a “buycott”: By whatever name, it’s a tactic that’s growing in popularity. As Wednesday's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day indicates, it’s a form of protest Americans find increasingly easy to swallow.
By James Gerken
An estimated 40,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. on Sunday for the Forward on Climate Rally on the National Mall. The rally preceded a march to the White House to urge President Barack Obama to take action against climate change and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.
Ricardo Levins Morales is an artist and organizer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was born into the anti-colonial movement in Puerto Rico, and when his family moved to Chicago in 1967, he became interested in activism. After leaving high school early, he worked in various industries and began to use art as part of his activism work.
On the opening day of the Spring/Summer 2011's season of Mercedes Benz's New York Fashion Week, former fashion editor, speaker, and fashion activist Michaela Angela Davis led a protest of approximately 20 black women, dressed in black suits, carrying signs with the names of every fashion editor in the 40 year history of African American fashion and lifestyle magazine, Essence Magazine.
At 12:00 noon (New York time) on November 19, 2016, Chinese artist Ning Kong, wearing a wedding dress with hundred dove, appeared at the 911 site in New York. Even though the theme of performance art is calling for peace, the police banned it and showed the handcuffs because doing performance art was not allowed at the 9/11 site. So Kong Ning turned to Times Square, New York, successfully completing her performance art.
Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster is the traveling version of the first major exhibition devoted to the University of Rochester's collection of HIV/AIDS-related posters. It illustrates to a broad audience that "AIDS affects everyone" and through the use of language and imagery, shows how messaging and information around HIV is shared to different groups, audiences, and people throughout the world.
Last August, as protesters marched in Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old unarmed teen shot by a police officer, another group of activists began thinking about how to incorporate the creative community into the movement. The result is Manifest:Justice, a free pop-up art show taking place in Los Angeles.