Projects with Clear Short-Term Goals

These projects all have short-term goals. Ideally each contributes to a campaign with a clear, well-defined path to a goal. Ideally, there are targets—people, institutions—that the project (and/or campaign) pressures and which, if pressured, can help achieve the goal.
MSU community uses art to show solidarity with Iran protests
Practitioner:
MSU
Date:
Jan 27 2023

Amid ongoing protests and government repression in Iran, a group of artists at Michigan State University is raising awareness about the women fighting for their rights in the country.

The group hosted a packed crowd one January evening for a night of music, dance, and poetry performances. The pieces, inspired by Iranian stories and icons, show solidarity with the ongoing movement abroad.

In the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death, the hoodie takes on a greater meaning
Practitioner:
Robert Samuels
Date:
Mar 29 2012

I was just shy of 18 when I bought the hooded sweatshirt — a metallic silver thing that cost about $10 on the Aeropostale clearance rack — to take with me to Northwestern University in the Chicago suburbs, knowing my parents would be worried when they saw it.

Rainbow Makeover: Swedish Response to Russian anti-LGBTQ+ Discrimination.
Practitioner:
Local LGBT activists
Date:
Aug 12 2013

Swedish lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates offered their colorful stance on Russia's controversial anti-gay legislation over the weekend.

The Climate Fast
Practitioner:
Sonam Wangchuk
Date:
Jan 27 2023

New Delhi: With his ‘climate fast’ entering its fourth day at Khardungla pass (18,000 ft) at -40 °C, Sonam Wangchuk — the renowned engineer, educationist and reformer from Ladakh took to Twitter, urging the people of India to join him on the last day of his fast in support of Ladakh.

The Fight Against AIDS, La Radical Gai in 1994
Practitioner:
La Radical Gai
Date:
Dec 1 1994

This act of art and activism displayed in the photograph was created in 1994 by the group La Radical Gai at the height of the HIV and AIDS epidemic that decimated many communities in Madrid. The first case of AIDS in Spain was documented in 1982. Since that time, 85,000 people in Spain have been diagnosed with AIDS and 60,000 people have died from the deadly virus (Soriano, Ramos, Barreiro, Fernandez-Montero, 2018).

China’s Creative Acts of Protest: Memes, Puns and Blank Sheets of Paper
Practitioner:
People of China
Date:
Nov 28 2202

In Shanghai, a vigil grew into a street protest where many held blank sheets of white paper in a symbol of tacit defiance.

In Beijing, students at Tsinghua University raised signs showing a math equation devised by the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann, whose surname in Chinese is a homonym for “free man.”

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