Singaporean artist Lee Wen’s series Journey of a Yellow Man (1992–2012), one of his most famous and long-standing performances, was not simply a personal affront, it was a political affront. At the intersection of Asian art history, critical race theory, and migration and diasporic studies, one is never far (enough away) from the chromatic framing of race and ethnicity: yellow race, yellow peril, yellow face, the forever foreigner.
For FX Harsono, art is activism. Over the past four decades, performance, sculpture, and painting have become his means of nonviolent protest against government autocracy and ethnic strife in Indonesia.
By adding screen print with the wording ‘SUPERCOPY’ on to copies of LaCoste polo shirts bought at a street market in Thailand SUPERFLEX turns a copy product into a Supercopy – a new original. As a result, LaCoste took legal action against SUPERFLEX.
Cartoons Against Corruption is a cartoon based campaign by political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi to support anti corruption movement in India, best known for sharp hard hitting anti corruption cartoons. Using national emblems and current political news, Trivedi creates cartoons that don't attempt to skirt the issues at hand, but portrays his political stance straightforwardly.
Alokananda Roy walked into Calcutta's Presidency Jail on International Women's Day, 2007. The Indian classical dancer had been invited to watch female inmates perform, but it was the men who caught her eye.
"They shook me," she says. "Their body language — it was as though they had no future, nothing to look forward to."
Members of Greenpeace together with environmental advocates dressed as zombies attend a creative protest against water pollution in Manila on September 27, 2012. The protesters delivered a petition urging the establishment of a “Right-To-Know” system for chemicals and the adoption of a policy to eliminate hazardous chemicals released by factories into freshwater bodies.
Many artists are inspired to bring climate change into their work after a direct experience with it. Catherine Sarah Young hopes her work helps people understand and talk about their experiences with climate change.
Dark Matter is a trans South Asian performance art duo comprised of Alok Vaid-Menon and Janani Balasubramanian, a prominent pair of voices operating at the intersection of the arts and activism.
Baadal Nanjundaswamy, a Bangalore based artist who works at an advertising agency uses his art to embarrass the civic authorities into fixing the potholes that litter the roads of Bangalore.
Most nights since a coup returned Myanmar to military rule on Feb. 1, a spectral symbol of protest has glowed on a mildewed side of a building.
Where the next illumination will appear in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, is a mystery. But, suddenly, a projected image appears in the dark. Three fingers raised in a rebellious pose. A dove of peace. The smiling face of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose government was ousted in the army putsch.
Meet To Sleep, a campaign started by Blank Noise, asks citizens from all across India to come to different public spaces like parks, and sleep there in order to take back free spaces without being afraid for their safety. The first meet was organised in November, 2014, in Bengaluru’s Cubbon Park. And since then there have been eleven meets across various cities including Jaipur, Pune, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.
The Kodaikanal Won't video by Chennai artist Sofia Ashraf, asking Unilver to 'clean up their mess' in connection with the Kodaikanal mercury dumping, has gone viral with over 783,533 views at the time of writing this, in just over two days. It has been shared on social media by prominent personalities such as Nandita Das, Varun Grover, Vishal Dadlani and was even praised by Nicki Minaj, on whose song Anaconda, the rap is based on.
On April 24, 2013, more than 1,000 lives were taken in the Rana Plaza Collapse. While history remembers this tragic event as the deadliest garment factory accident, activist and photographer Taslima Akhter reveals a story of dreams crushed by structural murder. Dedicating her career to the lives and struggles of garment workers in Bangladesh, she has continued to foster a community rallying together for safer working conditions.