Projects tagged "London"

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.
The Poster Workshop
Practitioner:
Anonymous
Date:
May 1 1968
Between the late 1960s and 1970s numerous alternative printshops were set up across the UK, with the founding objective of producing, providing or facilitating the cheap and safe printing of radical materials. They were started by libertarians, aligned and non-aligned Marxists, anarchists and feminists, and as such were constitutive of the fractured and fractious politics of the post-1968 left.
BP protest at Tate Britain
Practitioner:
Good Crude Britannia
Date:
Jun 29 2010
Protesters bathed an entrance to the Tate Britain in mock oil provoking anger from guests attending a party to mark 20 years of BP's sponsorship of the flagship gallery. A dozen veiled artists, angered by the Tate's continuing involvement with the oil giant, spat vats of treacle before covering the area with feathers as guests arrived.
The Vivienne Foundation
Practitioner:
Vivienne Westwood
Date:
Dec 15 2022
The Vivienne Foundation exists to honour, protect and continue the legacy of Vivienne's creativity and activism. Since the start of her career in the 1970s, Vivienne was renowned not only for her fashion design, but also her activism. Vivienne always utilised her platform of prestige to make the world a better place.
Diagram of the "Brookes" Slave Ship
Practitioner:
18th century abolitionists
Date:
Jan 1 1787
This diagram of the 'Brookes' slave ship is probably the most widely copied and powerful image used by the abolitionist campaigners. It depicts the ship loaded to its full capacity - 454 people crammed into the hold.The 'Brookes' sailed the passage from Liverpool via the Gold Coast in Africa to Jamaica in the West Indies.
From Nope to Hope: Art vs Arms, Oil & Injustice
Practitioner:
Nope To Arms Collective
Date:
Aug 2 2018
After artists learned that London's Design Museum was connected to Leonardo, a large arms dealing company, and hosted an event for them, many of the artists featured in their Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-2018 asked the museum for their work to be removed. After receiving no response, one third of the show's artists removed their work from the show.
Homeworkers
Practitioner:
Margaret F. Harrison
Date:
Jan 1 1977
Homeworkers 1977 is the central piece of a multidisciplinary project that comprised photographs, interviews, news clippings and a large canvas documenting the situation of non-unionised women doing manual work at home.
Music video in support of gay marriage rights
Practitioner:
Sam Smith
Date:
Feb 5 2015
Grammy nominee and Rolling Stone cover star Sam Smith unveiled the video for his new single "Lay Me Down," the latest track off his platinum-selling debut album In the Lonely Hour. The video, filmed at the parish church of St.
Shibboleth
Practitioner:
Tate Modern, The Unilever Series
Date:
Oct 9 2007
Text taken from website:
Red Envelope Movement in London
Practitioner:
World Microphone (Chinese 世界麦克风)
Date:
Feb 14 2021
World Microphone (世界麦克风) is an organization created by students (most of them are Chinese) located in London. The organization has an account in RED, which is a popular social media in China. It often holds interviews and movements on the street in London, talking about world culture, food, and travel. Then, it makes short videos based on these interviews and movements and posts the videos on RED.
Slashing the Rokeby Venus
Practitioner:
Mary Raleigh Richardson, WSPU
Date:
Mar 10 1914
On March 10, 1914, Mary Richardson slashed Velasquez's "Rokeby Venus" with a small axe during public hours at the National Gallery in London. A militant suffragette protesting the force-feeding of imprisoned suffragettes in prison (and the Cat and Mouse Act which released the starving women only until they were slightly healthier only to imprison them again), Richardson released this statement after her arrest:
Multi-Story-Rite of Spring in a Car Park
Practitioner:
Multi-Storey
Date:
Jul 23 2011
On July 23rd 2011 a newly formed organization Multi-Story performed Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in a multi-story car park in Peckham Rye London. In doing so it completely subverted the entrenched traditions of the performance of classical music. The organization used student musicians and did not charge admission.
Savages
Practitioner:
Savages
Date:
Jan 22 2016
Savages are an all-female post-punk band that attempt to motivate people to be informed and take part in politics. They "try to give people a platform to express their own ideas" as Fay Milton of the band explains. The following is the manifesto Savages wrote for their 2016 album, Adore Life:
Poor Little Fish
Practitioner:
Yan Lu
Date:
Apr 4 2012
Is it possible that through affective design we can change our consumer behavior? Yan Lu and his "Little Fish Project" offer a design inspired solution to excess use of water. "As consumption is incalculable, saving is often neglected through daily consumption.
Empty the Cages
Practitioner:
Dan Witz, PETA
Date:
Sep 1 2014
Fifty-six-year-old Dan Witz — who originally hails from Chicago but lives in Brooklyn — has been producing street art in New York since the seventies. And not just any street art. Wondrous works that trick the eye and often elude passersby altogether. Oh, but when one realizes what he or she is seeing, it’s pure revelation.
Ice Watch
Practitioner:
Olafer Eliasson
Date:
Dec 1 2018
Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has extracted 30 blocks of glacial ice from the waters surrounding Greenland and placed them in public spaces across London, where they will be left to melt. Called Ice Watch, the temporary installation is meant to serve as a visual reminder of the impact of climate change on the environment.
Invisible Homeless
Practitioner:
Luke Jerram, 1625 Independent People
Date:
Dec 22 2015
Artist Luke Jerram created a genderless sleeping figure made of glass lying on a piece of cardboard and exhibited in the streets of London. The artist said in an interview "For every person you see sleeping on the streets, there are many others sleeping in hostels, squats and other forms of unsatisfactory and insecure accommodation.
Why protesters disrupted London Fashion Week
Practitioner:
Extinction Rebellion protesters
Date:
Feb 21 2020
Protesters from Extinction Rebellion disrupted London Fashion Week last weekend (15 February). The group called on the industry to change its approach to protecting the planet: “We are asking not for sustainability but a complete reinvention of this industry in a way that regenerates the environment,” Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Sara Arnold said.
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
Practitioner:
CIRCA
Date:
May 13 2003
To some, the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) might appear to be but a ragged bunch of activists sporting false noses, a smudge of grease paint, camouflage pants and bad wigs. And those people may be right. But it is also a highly disciplined army of professional clowns, a militia of authentic fools, a battalion of true buffoons.
Russell Tribunal on Palestine
Practitioner:
Russell Tribunal on Palestine
Date:
Mar 4 2009
“May this Tribunal prevent the crime of silence“…
Art, Activism, and the City: Illuminating Social Change
Practitioner:
Donkeys
Date:
Mar 13 2025
The creative fusion of art and activism in urban spaces has propelled the British collective Led by Donkeys into the spotlight, garnering millions of views for their interventions on social media. Their critical visual occupations - whether billboard messages during the day or large-scale projections at night - raise a compelling question: which medium holds the greater persuasive power?
Becoming an Image
Practitioner:
Cassils
Date:
Jun 1 2012
Cassils' Becoming an Image confronts issues of queer and trans visibility, bodily violence, and the politics of witnessing. The performance uses a powerful blend of media—including live action in darkness, flash photography, clay sculpture, and sound—to explore how trauma and resilience are physically and symbolically inscribed onto the queer body.
Dirty Money in Art & Big Pharma
Practitioner:
Nan Goldin & P.A.I.N.
Date:
Jul 20 2018
Between 1995 and 2017 the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin brought in $35 billion USD in revenue for Purdue Pharma, most of which went directly into the hands of the Sackler family.
The Whole World Is An Art School
Practitioner:
Bob and Roberta Smith
Date:
Feb 13 2018
Bob and Roberta Smith has been at the forefront of activist art for 2 decades; so who better to ask about how art is responding to these politically bleak times?
London 2012 Olympics: Anti-BP activists carry out sponsor sacking hoax as protests grow
Practitioner:
Campaign for a Sustainable Olympics
Date:
Apr 11 2012
Hoax: The London 2012 Olympic Games website was faked by group CAMSOL The official London 2012 Olympic Games website was faked on Wednesday by protesters demanding that BP be dropped as one of the event’s official sponsors. Published April 13, 2012 on The Telegraph UK by Jacquelin Magnay

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