Projects tagged "creative activism"

Queer Crisis (4.25.2014)
Practitioner:
Queer Crisis Flash Collective
Date:
Jun 24 2014
An intervention created by the April 25 2015 Queer Crisis Collective organized by the Helix Queer Performance Network (HQPN), and part of an ongoing queer resistance project mentored by Avram Finkelstein. Over a period of 2 weekends, 8 artists met at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics to design a creative intervention during Pride month in NYC.
Activists get branded with hot steel
Practitioner:
269 Life
Date:
Oct 2 2012
On October 2nd 2012, World Farmed Animals Day, three animal rights activists in Israel got branded with a hot steel brand, in the same way that farmed animals are branded in factory farms.
Discongreso
Practitioner:
Enmedio
Date:
Sep 25 2012
"Surround Congress”: as soon as we’d heard this, in our minds we were there. To make the Government resign and demand they start a new constituent process seemed like a great idea. We immediately got to work.
Bon Appetit
Practitioner:
KD Key Detail
Date:
Sep 3 2013
Creative Graffiti at the Urban Culture Festival in Germany By Loredana Loy A street art project by by KD Key Detail from Minsk, Belarus--created and featured at the IBUg 2013 Urban Culture Festival in Zwickau, Germany. The project is entitled "Bon Appetit." Images speak louder than words. Links and photos below.
SaveCanada
Practitioner:
SaveCanada
Date:
Sep 1 2013
Save Canada is a direct action that began in Ontario in fall 2013. In reaction to TransCanada's public relations tour of townships affected by the Keystone XL pipeline, Save Canada decided to infiltrate the meetings, which were being held as propaganda displays rather than honest conversations with the people.
We Animals
Practitioner:
Jo-Anne McArthur
Date:
May 11 2012
We Animals is an ambitious project which documents, through photography, animals in the human environment. Humans are as much animal as the sentient beings we use for food, clothing, research, experimentation, work, entertainment, slavery and companionship. With this as its premise, We Animals aims to break down the barriers that humans have built which allow us to treat nonhuman animals as objects and not as beings with moral significance.
UC Student Art Action protests corporate privatization of public education
Practitioner:
Freshwomen of UC Berkeley
Date:
May 8 2012
On Tuesday, May 8, in the midst of final exam week, a group of female first-year students performed a public art action at UC Berkeley to call attention to the UC Regents’ privatization of what was once the premier public university in the country.(See photos below)
Much Ado About BP
Practitioner:
Reclaim Shakespeare Company
Date:
Oct 24 2012
"Members of the Reclaim Shakespeare Company jumped on stage at the Noël Coward theatre to deliver another surprise anti-BP performance. Just before the second half of a BP-sponsored Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) performance of Much Ado About Nothing was due to begin, the three actor-vists performed a short Shakespeare-inspired piece.
Streets into Gardens
Practitioner:
Reclaim the Streets
Date:
May 14 1999
During this time rent prices in the Lower East Side/ East Village were rising due to the presence of many community gardens. In response to this, then Mayor Giuliani decided to sell the 198 gardens in question. Streets into Gardens was an effective project that engaged the neighborhood into a collective of change.
The Sahmat Collective
Practitioner:
The Sahmat Collective
Date:
Jan 1 1989
In 1989, playwright, actor, and activist Safdar Hashmi was fatally attacked by political thugs while performing a street play outside of Delhi. His death led to the founding of Sahmat, an influential artist collective that has taken a consistent stance against the threats of religious fundamentalism and sectarianism in India through a vibrant mix of high art and street culture.
Reverse pay-per-view!
Practitioner:
Farm USA
Date:
May 10 2012
Since summer 2011, FARM’s activists have been paying people $1 each to watch a 4-minute video depicting the inherent cruelties of raising animals for food. This tactic, known as “pay-per-view,” has led 80% of participants to reduce meat consumption, sparing tens of thousands of animals from abuse and slaughter.
Tunisian Human Rights Activists Take to the Streets with Art
Practitioner:
Fanni Raghman Anni
Date:
Feb 1 2015
Post revolution Tunisia is all too familiar with protest – usually through demonstrations - but one group of activists are using the power of street art to get their message across. Calling themselves “Fanni Raghman Anni” (Arabic for “My Art in Spite of Myself”), the group simply scouts the streets of Tunisia bringing theater and drama to random passers-by.
Orquesta Solfónica de Madrid
Practitioner:
Orquesta Solfónica de Madrid
Date:
May 15 2011
Orquesta Solfónica de Madrid The Orquesta Solfónica de Madrid (Solphonic Orchestra of Madrid) is a self-organized orchestra that was formed in the context of the social movement 15M and that has gained popularity for playing classical music in demonstrations and acts of social protest.
MFA Billboard
Practitioner:
Guerilla Girls
Date:
Sep 22 2012
The Guerrilla Girls tactic was well thought-out and was effective in creating a spectacle to draw attention to the issue at hand, which is the lack of female representation in the museum. Where I think the campaign has some drawbacks is in the actual message on the billboard. The rhetorical and ironic message is subtle and really only reaches those who are privy to the art world and/ or the museum.
Massive psychic attack: render the Pope impotent
Practitioner:
Enmedio
Date:
Nov 7 2010
On November 7, 2010 Pope Benedict XVI visited our city. He would have been better off staying at home. Even before he touched land we had rendered him impotent for life. Yes: im-po-tent.
H&M Ad-busting
Practitioner:
Daniel Soares
Date:
Jan 1 2014
Artist Daniel Soares pasted Photoshop toolbar stickers on these H&M posters as a nice little reminder that not all is as it seems. Y'all know how Photoshop messes with our perception of beauty, and I think this is a smart little stunt to snap us back into reality when we start to wonder why we never look like the girls on the posters we walk past every day.
Party #CierraBankia (Shut down Bankia)
Practitioner:
Enmedio
Date:
Jun 4 2012
First cut the banks! In 2012 Bankia declared itself bankrupt and, almost immediately, asked the Government of Spain for €23 billion. The Government accepted, yet that very same week ordered €20,000 million worth of cuts in health and education. It was then that we realized that what they called a crisis was actually a scam. You wouldn’t believe how pissed off we were. So we threw a party, because there is nothing like partying to relieve your anger.
#IHaveADream
Practitioner:
The Sanctuaries
Date:
Jan 19 2015
I really enjoy the events that we host at The Sanctuaries. They're well planned but not over-planned, so there's space to just be yourself. On Monday, January 19th, we held a wonderful event that celebrated the teachings and life of Martin Luther King, Jr. The turnout was strong!
"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.
Rain of Poems over London
Practitioner:
Colectivo Casagrande
Date:
Jun 26 2012
Rain of Poems took place over London on Tuesday 26th June 2012 at 9pm. One hundred thousand poems printed on bookmarks by over 300 contemporary poets from 204 countries fell from a helicopter over Jubilee Gardens during Poetry Parnassus as the sun sets. 
Stop Telling Women to Smile
Practitioner:
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh
Date:
Mar 1 2013
Stop Telling Women to Smile is a street art project by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh that addresses gender based street harassment. Street harassment is a serious issue that affects women world wide. This project attempts to take women's voices, and faces, and put them in the street - creating a presence for women in an environment where women are a lot of times made to feel uncomfortable and unsafe - outside in the street.
Projeto Axé
Practitioner:
Cesare de Florio La Rocca (founder)
Date:
Jan 1 1990
“Children and youngsters who are invisible to society are made visible through Art”
100 Faces of War Experience
Practitioner:
Matt Mitchell
Date:
Jan 1 2009
On completion the 100 Faces project will consist of 100 Portraits of Americans who have been to the theaters of war in Iraq or Afghanistan (OEF,OIF). Each portrait is accompanied by a placard featuring a statement written by the person pictured and a brief biography of the person pictured. The biographical information and the statement reflect the person at the time of the creation of the portrait.
Clean Up Day
Practitioner:
Oskar Metsavaht
Date:
Jul 19 2012
Through his environmental, social justice organization, Instituto-E, Dr. Oskar Metsavaht, the creative director behind ethical fashion brand, Osklen, joined forces with Rainer Nolvak, founder of international civic sanitation movement, Let's Do it and Umer Pter, head of External Relations and Estonian delegate at the Rio+20 U.N.
"Glory" Performance at the Academy Awards
Practitioner:
John Legend, Common
Date:
Feb 22 2015
See below for a link to the performance of the song at the Academy Awards. From Salon: How Common and John Legend’s performance of “Glory” fired up Oscar night’s idling empathy machine by Sonia Saraiya

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