From Black Power to Migrants’ Power
BY Robin Cembalest POSTED 01/22/13
As ’60s activist art enters museums, a new generation is creating an iconography of protest for today
At noon today, a group of artists and activists including members of the Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (known as G.U.L.F.) unfurled a large parachute in the atrium of the Guggenheim Museum, demanding to meet with a member of the institution’s board of trustees to discuss the labor conditions at its Abu Dhabi site.
Members of this organization begin the narrative process by examining city neighborhoods and commercial districts for compelling structures that appear to have fallen into disuse —“hidden gems” of the built environment. In varying states of repair, these buildings suggest only stories about the past, not the future.
In May, the horrific mass shooting in Isla Vista, CA, triggered national conversations about violent misogyny. After some Twitter users began using the hashtag #NotAllMen to defensively derail the conversation, the hugely popular hashtag #YesAllWomen emerged, getting tweeted over 1 million times within just a few days.
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."
The link between early trauma and ill health later was untilled soil in the world of medicine. But the possibility of a connection captured the interest of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. And it was the beginning of a 25-year odyssey for Vincent Felitti when he teamed up with researchers to study the health of 17,000 members of a preventive care program at Kaiser Permanente, a private insurer.
Waterpod™ was a floating, sculptural, eco-habitat designed for the rising tides. It launched in the summer of 2009, navigate down the East River, explore the waters of New York Harbor, and docked at several Manhattan piers on the Hudson River before continuing onward. The Waterpod™ demonstrated future pathways for water -based innovations.
Julie Dillon is a critically acclaimed illustrator, having been nominated and won multiple awards, including two Hugos and a Chesley. Her work often deals with science fiction and fantasy stories, and her work in the field has made her aware of the lack of diversity in this optimistic speculative fiction.
Mayday is a neighborhood resource and a citywide destination for engaging programming, a home for radical thought and debate, and a welcoming gathering place for people to work, learn, drink, dance and build together.
On the afternoon of September 11th, nearly a hundred people hugged each other to feel the beauty of the hug on the Paris Square in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, under the leadership of the Chinese artist Gao Brothers. At the beginning of the event, the Germans have not yet adapted to the behavior of embracing strangers, but encouraged by Gao brothers, people have opened their arms and gave the strangers around them a warm hug.
The play celebrates the life and legacy of the Mexican-American labor activist César Chávez. His early life as well as his partnership with Dolores Huerta, activism with the National Farm Workers Association, the 1968 grape boycott, and his ongoing commitment to nonviolent civil rights work.
Last week, Tunisia's tallest minaret went under the brush of the country's hottest muralist. On the Jara Mosque in his hometown of Gabes, 31-year-old eL Seed painted a verse from the Quran preaching tolerance, a message meant for Salafist Islamists who protested "provocative" pieces at an art exhibition earlier this summer.
Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) -- They've been described as the voice of their generation -- though not one that everyone is comfortable hearing.
Mashrou' Leila, whose name translates as "The Night Project," is a controversial alternative rock band from Lebanon, whose music has served as something of a soundtrack to the Arab Spring for many young people throughout the region.
In order to raise awareness about the global issue of arranged child marriages, 21-year-old YouTube star Coby Persin decided to push the envelope by asking a 12-year-old 'bride' to pose with a 65-year-old 'groom' in the middle of Times Square. Child marriage is not only legal in 91 countries around the world, but even continues to be legal in the United States - with some having a cut off as low as 12 years of age.
When award-winning architect David Rockwell started spending time in playgrounds with his young children, he was disturbed by the lack of imagination and variation in the way kids interact with standardized playground equipment. He spent five years developing the Imagination Playground, seeking private-public partnerships to see it realized.
The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg58d8opQKA
From Flavorwire:
“Another world is possible!” — so goes the popular activist chant at rallies and marches. Yet one of the most difficult aspects of sustaining a grassroots political movement can be imagining that other world and persisting even when it seems far away.
In a conceptually odd but undeniably memorable PSA campaign, the Mexico City Metro has installed a “penis seat” in one of its subway cars, featuring a molded likeness of a man’s torso and penis, to get male riders thinking about the sexual harassment that women endure every day.
The seat is labeled “For men only.”
The kidnapping and enslavement of African people was the life-blood of transnational corporations like the "Royal African Company." In law, these human resource corporations were called "artificial people." Their human cargo was called "cargo."
Horror stories about treacherous boat journeys from Africa to the Mediterranean far too often make headline news. The men, women and children fleeing their homes to start a new life in Europe become faceless numbers in the media, and are ‘othered’ by conservative politicians for their own agenda.
Over the past twenty-five years or so, ever since her spectacular New York début at the Drawing Center, in 1994, the now forty-four-year-old artist Kara Walker’s visual production—sculptures, cutouts, drawings, films—has been diaristic in tone.
The Mueller Report, important as it is, has not been read by most Americans. While perhaps written in more accessible language than other federal reports, there have been efforts to bring it into other formats: audio books, performances, and The Mueller Report presented in graphic novel form by Barbara Slate.
Maha ElNabawi
Amid the bleak backdrop of a revolution-riddled Egypt, a beacon of positivity shone on downtown Cairo Friday during the launch of one of the most exciting, social-conscious street art collaborations to happen this year.