Main Gallery

“Don’t Look Up” director McKay gives to climate activists
Practitioner:
Adam McKay
Date:
Sep 20 2020
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — In director Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up,” a 2021 satire about two scientists who try in vain to warn the world about a planet-destroying comet, the scientists’ desperate plea for action ultimately doesn’t work. But don’t take that as McKay’s view on the power of activism to change the course of the climate crisis, the existential threat his movie was really about.
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Peng! Collective Slams Shell at their PR event in Berlin
Practitioner:
Peng! Collective
Date:
Dec 11 2013
In 2013, Shell sent out press releases about their upcoming event, the Science Slam, which would aim to “celebrate the company’s responsible oil production” and “showcase ideas for renewable energy by scientists and students.” Essentially, Shell organized this event in the hopes that it would allow the multinational oil company to appear as if it is actually concerned about the environment and finding alternatives to oil.
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Blindfolding Statues in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (no title)
Practitioner:
Oraculo Project, but the artist remains anonymous.
Date:
Mar 13 2016
An artist in Brazil, who remains anonymous, placed red blindfolds on the eyes of statues across the city of Rio de Janeiro to protest the country's political crisis.
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Abou Naddara
Practitioner:
Unknown
Date:
Jan 1 2011
Abounaddara is a collective of self-taught and volunteer filmmakers involved in emergency cinema.
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Syria: Third Space
Practitioner:
Unknown
Date:
Jan 21 2015
This exhibition is a collection of work by displaced Syrian artists. With the support of the British Council, 'Syria: Third Space' demonstrates the roles that artists play in supporting recovery and resilience. It seeks to show how artists can break boundaries, support and unite communities, re-interpret and offer alternative viewpoints through their practice. Syria: Third Space
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I Love You America
Practitioner:
Sarah Silverman
Date:
Oct 12 2017
Sarah Silverman Wants to Pop Your Bubble With her new political variety show, “I Love You, America,” the stand-up comic aims to unite red and blue. But can TV really change minds? By Jason Zinoman Oct. 4, 2017
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Textile Meditations: Mary Fisher and Friends
Practitioner:
Mary Fisher
Date:
Feb 10 2018
Mary Fisher wears many hats: Artist, author, and HIV/AIDS activist are just a few. The latter is perhaps what she's known best for—her influential speech at the 1992 Republication National Convention is regarded as one of the greatest American speeches of the century, spurring a push toward treatment and compassion towards those who are HIV-positive.
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Your body is a battleground
Practitioner:
Barbara Kruger
Date:
Apr 9 1989
Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) is an iconic 1989 silkscreen portrait made by artist, feminist and activist Barbara Kruger . Though the poster was meant for the pro-choice march on April 9th, 1989, in DC, the portrait is now used mainly to voice the artist’s own opinion about gender inequality. The piece is much more relevant in today’s society, where it controls the way we view and treat women’s bodies.
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#MyNameIs
Practitioner:
Sister Roma
Date:
Oct 1 2014
Facebook came under fire when its authentic-name policy led to San Francisco drag queen Sister Roma and others being barred from the social network. The policy allows users to report people they believe are using fake names. This caused a stir when a group of drag performers suddenly found that their Facebook accounts had been deactivated. Among them was Sister Roma, who had not registered on the site under her legal name, Michael Williams.
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From a Universe of Trash
Practitioner:
Vik Muniz
Date:
Oct 28 2010
From a Universe of Trash, Recycling Art and Hope By STEPHEN HOLDEN “We are not pickers of garbage; we are pickers of recyclable materials,” Tião, an impoverished Brazilian catadore, or trash picker, declares to a talk-show host in Lucy Walker’s inspiring documentary “Waste Land.”
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“The Neighbors” Exhibition at the New Museum
Practitioner:
Paweł Althamer, New Museum
Date:
Feb 12 2014
Beginning in February 2014, the New Museum will present the first US museum exhibition devoted to the work of Polish artist Paweł Althamer. The exhibition “The Neighbors” will include a new presentation of the artist’s work, Draftsmen’s Congress, originally presented at the 7th Berlin Biennial (2012).
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The Wisdom of the Universe
Practitioner:
Christi Belcourt
Date:
Jan 1 2014
The Wisdom of the Universe was painted in 2014 by Métis artist, author, and activist Christi Belcourt. Based in Northeastern Ontario, Belcourt is best known for her large-scale acrylic paintings — like this one — that use hundreds of thousands of tiny dots to simulate Métis beadwork. At the Art Gallery of Ontario, where The Wisdom of the Universe lives, the painting has become a popular sight.
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Liberation art from the Church
Practitioner:
Sister Corita Kent
Date:
Jan 1 1969
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
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When artists go to war: inside the PLO's information department
Practitioner:
Palestine Liberation Organization
Date:
May 12 2014
I was 24 years old. We were in danger. The Israeli planes were flying raids overhead. And I was designing posters." Hosni Radwan won't easily forget the conditions in the Beirut offices of the PLO Information Department, as an exhibition of the work it produced opens in London.
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Lies for Less: Vermin Supreme for President
Practitioner:
Vermin Supreme
Date:
Jan 26 1988
Vermin Supreme is an American performance artist, anarchist and activist who is known for running as an alternative candidate in various local, state, and national elections in the United States since 1988. Supreme is known for wearing a boot shaped hat and carrying a large toothbrush.  Vermin Supreme's four-plank platform is simple, yet elegant: 1) Mandatory tooth-brushing laws. 2) Zombie preparedness.
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Carly's Cafe
Practitioner:
Carly Fleischmann
Date:
Jun 3 2012
Carly's cafe 
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Unforgotten Campaign
Practitioner:
Unforgotten Campaign
Date:
Apr 27 2015
Blair Holt was shot and killed while he shielded another classmate from the bullets a gunman sprayed on a CTA bus in Chicago in 2007. His father is a police officer and his mother is a fire department chief, and that’s what they had taught him to do.
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When Art Meets Science: The Hyberbolic Crochet Coral Reef
Practitioner:
Margaret Wertheim, Christine Wertheim
Date:
Oct 16 2010
The “Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef,” a unique exhibition and thought-provoking fusion of science, conservation, mathematics, and art, is on display in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. By engaging local communities to crochet coral reefs, the exhibition celebrates the reefs' beautiful diversity and speaks to the urgent need to protect these vanishing ecosystems.
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Freedom of speech Lecture to a university occupation
Practitioner:
Raymond Geuss
Date:
Nov 29 2011
On November 29th 2011 Proffessor of Philosophy Raymond Geuss relocated a lecture he was scheduled to give to an occupied lecture hall on the campus of cambridge university.
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Coursera
Practitioner:
Daphne Koller, Andrew Ng
Date:
Jan 1 2012
Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng founded Coursera, a social entrepreneurship company that partners with top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Coursera envisions a future where the top universities are educating millions of students. The technology enables the best professors to teach hundreds of thousands of students.
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