On March 3, 1913, President-elect Woodrow Wilson arrived at Union Station in Washington, DC. It was the day before his inauguration, but the teeming mobs that typically appeared to greet a new president were nowhere to be found. Instead, the streets of Washington seemed deserted. A disappointed Wilson asked, “Where are all the people?” “Over on the Avenue watching the suffrage parade,” he was told.
The public bathrooms at Penn Station in New York City are a dirty, depressing place. But now, there’s a bright spot: a poster that encourages women to donate menstrual products, like pads or tampon, to help the many homeless women who frequent the bathroom.
It’s the summer of 1971 and tourists flock around one of Washington DC’s most famous hotspots – the Capitol steps. Journalist Art Goldberg recalls ‘a squad of soldiers moving through the space. They are grubby-looking troopers, clad in jungle fatigues. Jumping a low fence, they begin shouting at a group of tourists. “All right! Hold it! Hold it! Nobody move. Nobody move!” Their voices full of tension and anger. A man runs from the crowd.
This interactive, site-specific project is a comment on how we - constantly attached to mobile devices - neglect to observe the environment around us. Like ostriches, we willingly trap our heads, minds, and imagination in a fantasy world that is detached from reality.
Three colorful fabric tunnels span a man-made grove of Elm trees in downtown Boston, defining an intimate courtyard where nature clashes with cartoonish representation.
Ghostbikes.org is intended to be a site for the worldwide cycling
community where those lost on dangerous streets can
be remembered by their loved ones, members of their local communities,
and others from around the world. They also hope to inspire more people to
start installing ghost bikes in their communities and to initiate
changes that will make us all safer on the streets.
"Owning a vehicle, you could drive by and with the pressure of your foot on the accelerator and with your eyes on the road you could pass it quickly … The images of poverty would lift and float and recede quickly like the gray shades of memory so that these images were in the past before you came upon them. It was the physical equivalent of the evening news.” — David Wojnarowicz.
Kwame Brathwaite, the photographer and activist whose work gave a visual identity to the “Black is Beautiful” movement, died on April 1. He was 85.
The news was shared by his son, Kwame Brathwaite, Jr., in an Instagram post. “I am deeply saddened to share that my Baba, the patriarch of our family, our rock and my hero has transitioned,” Brathwaite, Jr. wrote. “Thank you for your love and support during this difficult time.”
Sewing and textiles have always been a part of the artist Aram Han Sifuentes’ life. Her South Korean immigrant parents operated a dry cleaning business, and she mended her own clothing from a young age.
The Howling Mob Society has created ten
historical markers representing history from the perspective of the working class. In particular, these markers detail events and significant locations from the
Great Strike of 1877 - a historical event in Pittsburgh's labor history that ignited a popular uprising of workingmen, families, and
neighbors alike as citizens stopped train services, burned railroad
September 5th, 2013, Raleigh, NC - As Walmart workers petition managers to reinstate employees who have been unfairly treated, a flash mob breaks out.
SEE VIDEO.
MOTHA is please to participate in the “Bring Your Own Body: transgender between archives and aesthetics“ exhibition at the Glass Curtain gallery in Chicago. Swing by the space to pick up the latest MOTHA newsprint broadside poster and watch the accompanying video slideshow, both entitled “Transvestism in the News,” made especially for the exhibit.
Activism through print media is often done through duplication: posters, flyers, magazines, manifestos. But with these media, each individual duplicate holds the same, political message.
In Felix Gonzalez-Torres's "Untitled" (Death by Gun) (1990), a stack of posters are placed in the gallery space for people to take with them. As the pile is depleted, more posters are printed.
By DOUGLAS QUENQUA
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For a table set up by a campus student group, this one held some unusual items: a gynecologist’s speculum, diaphragms, condoms (his and hers) and several packets of lubricant. Nearby, two students batted an inflated condom back and forth like a balloon.
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.
The work of Marcela Cantuária (b. 1991, Rio de Janeiro; lives in Rio de Janeiro) often portrays female figures who navigate regional, international, and social boundaries. Often highlighting symbols from tarot and astrology as well as themes that reflect political and environmental activism in Latin America, she weaves narratives of social spheres, political associations, and ethereal wishes.
Sometimes justice requires a little imagination. On Saturday, when
much of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York was loudly
denouncing police violence against minorities and protesters, a small
group of environmentalists dreamed up a way to get the police to focus
on the crimes of the 1 percent, to the point of arresting five corporate
suits on United Nations property.
Digital art platform Kinfolk has launched its New York City-wide participatory exhibition Signature Series, the initiative’s largest public endeavour to date. The project places newly created augmented reality (AR) monuments by four New York artists—Pamela Council, Derrick Adams, Tourmaline and Hank Willis Thomas—into designated public spaces across the city.
Note before the post: This article is great in highlighting a specific case of creative activism in the streets of New York City, but also gives some contextual background to how this project manifested.
On a sidewalk in the Village in downtown Manhattan, an African-American woman leans on her elbows and knees, wearing only black underpants. Scrawled in black marker all over her body are the words "Ain't I a Woman?"
By Catherine Porter
I spent an hour Wednesday morning talking pigs and Leo Tolstoy on a traffic island outside the Princes' Gates.
Anita Krajnc and her group call this “Pig Island.” They come here most weeks to watch and photograph the pigs en route to their death at nearby Quality Meat Packers.
What is looping? Somewhere in between art, activism, and wackiness is this liberating experience. Matthew Silver and Fritz Donnelley, two New York City based performance artists got lonely acting silly in their underwear in public. Knowing that there were enough free spirits to join them, they started "Looping" and invited everyone to join them.
For Auli'i Cravalho, actions speak louder than words.
On Thursday night, the Moana voice actress stepped out for the premiere of Prime Video show The Power. There, the 22-year-old decided to raise awareness on missing indigenous women and girls by wearing a red lipstick-made handprint across her mouth and face.
Beginning in the early 1970s, the Los Angeles-based multi-media arts collective Asco (from the Spanish word for nausea) created performances, street theater and conceptual art that satirized the emerging styles of Chicano art and pushed the boundaries of what it might encompass.
"This project took aim at a public relations campaign produced by The Union Square Partnership, a local Business Improvement District (BID) attempting to privatize the north end of NYC’s Union Square park and install a high-end celebrity chef restaurant. They hosted historical walking tours of the park for decision-makers, as a means of getting buy-in for their development initiative.