Main Gallery

Decolonize this Museum: Anti-Columbus Day Tour Attended by Hundreds at the American Museum of Natural History
Practitioner:
Decolonize This Place
Date:
Oct 9 2017
About: Hundreds of people came out to attend a decolonization tour of one of New York’s most popular museums. Written by Elena Goukassian on October 10, 2017
Read more
Autel de Lycée Chases (“Altar to the Chases High School”)
Practitioner:
Christian Boltanski
Date:
Jan 1 1986
Text taken from website: By appropriating mementos of other people’s lives and placing them in an art context, Boltanski explores the power of photography to transcend individual identity and to function instead as a witness to collective rituals and shared cultural memories.
Read more
Mika Rottenberg: Cosmic Generator
Practitioner:
Mika Rottenberg
Date:
Jan 1 2017
Cosmic Generator presents a network of characters working in nonsensical, and at times absurd, economies. Artist Mika Rottenberg uses footage from actual discount dollar stores in Calexico, CA; Mexicali, Mexico; and Yiwu, China to recreate the imaginary “life” of a product, from its production in the factory to the moment it is sold.
Read more
What Is Obscenity? The Story Of A Good For Nothing Artist And Her Pussy.
Practitioner:
Rokudenashiko
Date:
Jan 1 2014
Rokudenashiko is on a mission to free the vagina. In her native country of Japan, the vaginal slang word “manko” is considered taboo while the penis equivalent, “chinko,” is used freely. Rokudenashiko (the pseudonym of artist Megumi Igarashi) uses her manko art to destigmatize the vagina, using it as the basis for whimsical figurines, iPhone cases, dioramas, and, in her most infamous piece, a kayak.
Read more
Find the Future
Practitioner:
Jane McGonigal
Date:
May 20 2011
Find the Future: The Game is a pioneering, interactive experience created especially for NYPL’s Centennial by famed game designer Jane McGonigal, with Natron Baxter and Playmatics.
Read more
Orixás
Practitioner:
Hugo Canuto
Date:
Jan 13 2017
Imagine if back in the 1960s, creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee had found inspiration for The Avengers in Yoruba mythology. Instead of Iron Man, we'd have the warrior Oxaguiã. Taking the place of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Norse god Thor would be the equally strong and black-skinned Xangô, the ruler of justice — who also happens to carry a hammer.
Read more
This Was The Year “Girl’s Day” Really Stopped Being Cute
Practitioner:
Unknown Chinese undergraduates
Date:
Mar 7 2016
“Girl’s Day” in China was supposed to be a way for boys on college campuses to show the girls how much they care. This year it went too far. Have you heard about “Girl’s Day?” It’s a big holiday for Chinese college students. Every year on March 7, students throughout the country celebrate the day as a campus version of International Women’s Day.
Read more
Decolonize Me
Practitioner:
Foreman Art Gallery
Date:
Feb 5 2013
Decolonize Me features six contemporary Aboriginal artists whose works challenge, interrogate and reveal Canada’s long history of colonization in daring and innovative ways.
Read more
The Reality of Small Differences
Practitioner:
Gill Crawshaw; disabled artists in Yorkshire
Date:
Aug 23 2014
An exhibition of textile-based work by disabled artists, organised in protest at the inaccessibility of an exhibition by a popular artist, when it came to Leeds.
Read more
In Belarus, Theater as Activism
Practitioner:
THE FREE THEATER
Date:
Oct 4 2005
By DAVID L. STERN, in The New York Times Published: September 22, 2009
Read more
Stretch The Strangle Hold
Practitioner:
Joe Lovett
Date:
Aug 17 2011
American Painter, Joe Lovett completes painting of historic magnitude, Stretch the Strangle Hold is a painting that captures an emotional response to the lie of war.
Read more
Mercury Poisoning by Unilever in Kodaikanal
Practitioner:
Jhatkaa
Date:
Jul 30 2015
Global corporation Unilever dumped toxic and contaminated waste behind its thermometer factory located in Kodaikanal, a city in the South Indian state Tamil Nadu. In 2001, once word spread about this breach in environmental precautions, Unilever closed its factory. However, it is yet to adequately compensate its workers, many of whom suffered mercury poisoning. The corporation has also yet to clean up its mess and remediate the land.
Read more
MTA Posters- Gas Test
Practitioner:
Unknown
Date:
Jul 30 2013
What would a chemical attack on NYC look like? How would poisonous gases spread, through the lines of the subway and above ground? These are some of the questions the NYPD and a team of researchers hope to answer this July, when they’ll disperse colorless, odorless, and apparently harmless gases called perflourocarbons around the city and track their movement.
Read more
Semiotics of the Kitchen
Practitioner:
Martha Rosler
Date:
Dec 31 1975
“Semiotics of the Kitchen” is a feminist video art that examines the symbolism of women's confinement within domestic spaces, utilizing the framework of a televised cooking show. In this piece, Rosler assumes the role of an "anti-Julia Child," wielding a series of kitchen utensils in alphabetical order, some archaic and peculiar, assigning them arbitrary names before forcefully miming their use.
Read more
Singalongs
Practitioner:
Dave Lippman, Raging Grannies, The Stop Shopping Choir, many more
Date:
Dec 12 2015
I have several theories about why song rewrites work well. Theory aside, people know the tunes and can learn the words. Scholars differ on whether you should make it as simple as possible or let the crowd be the artist by recognizing their ability to learn and perform something a bit tricky. Either way, it's great when songs are repurposed and people get to shout and sing instead of just chanting or listening to speeches.
Read more
Church protest reveals realities of life in modern Bethlehem
Practitioner:
St James's Church
Date:
Dec 27 2013
The Rev Lucy Winkett is having trouble sleeping. This is because her church on Piccadilly has decided to erect a full-size copy of the Israeli separation barrier to block off her Christopher Wren church. And because she lives above the shop, the grim presence of this temporary structure is with her all the time. "Politics aside, living beside the 26ft wall is having a curious effect on those who are here.
Read more
Men in Grey
Practitioner:
Men in Grey
Date:
Aug 27 2010
From Media Facades Festival website:
Read more
Harry Potter Alliance
Practitioner:
Harry Potter Alliance
Date:
Jul 2 2000
What if we gave our teenagers the opportunity to imagine themselves as the heroes that they have grown up watching, rather than treating their precious minds as nothing more than a way to line the pockets of some CEO?
Read more
"1984" in Bangkok Streets
Practitioner:
Thailand protesters
Date:
May 30 2014
There are no whistles, no loud speakers, and no placards held up high in this quiet act of subversion. Pimsiri Petchnamrob stands silently in a mass of sharply dressed Bangkok commuters, her hands clutched around a copy of George Orwell's 1984. Next to her a small group of young men and women, their faces sombre and their heads bowed low, also read books about fictional and real totalitarian worlds in silence.
Read more
A Well Within
Practitioner:
Christopher Babers, DigDeep
Date:
May 14 2012
A Well Within" is a collaborative art and education project that inspires people - young and old - to confront the global water crisis in a personal way. This interactive experience tells the story of Alile, a young East African girl affected by drought, who struggles to give her grandmother a precious drink of water.
Read more

Pages