Projects tagged "Activates (people)"

Energizes and organizes people into action. Can include emotion work
Nats Never Die/The Zombies are Coming!
Practitioner:
The Yes Men and Reclaim the City
Date:
Sep 30 2019
The Yes Men join Reclaim the City in their fight against unjust housing policy. On September 30, 2019, a horde of zombies attended a "#natsneverdie rally" at the Cape Town Civic Centre in order to celebrate Mayor Dan Plato and the Mayoral Committee and to support their policies, which are increasingly similar to those of the National Party under Apartheid.
Chinese women protest at gynaecology checks for civil service jobs
Practitioner:
About 10 College Student
Date:
Nov 16 2012
On November 26, 2012, about ten college students “flash mobbed” the front of the human resources and social welfare department of Hubei Province in central China. "Refuse to take off pants for inspection," "Ask about menstrual history, what does it have to do with being a civil servant." According to the current admission regulations, female candidates for civil service positions must go through a detailed gynecological examination.
Nikeplatz
Practitioner:
Coachella Valley
Date:
Sep 1 2003
In September 2003 the news went out nationwide: Karlsplatz, one of Vienna's main squares, is soon to be renamed Nikeplatz. Apart from the new name, it appears that a huge monument in the shape of Nike's famous "Swoosh" logo will be built in Nikeplatz. Needless to say, it is all fake.
Tree Mountain-A Living Time Capsule
Practitioner:
Agnes Denes
Date:
Jun 5 1996
Denes's project "Tree Mountain-A Living Time Capsule" in Finland is a monumental earthwork involving the planting of 11,000 trees by 11,000 people on a reclaimed gravel pit. It's designed to grow over the next 400 years, serving as a testament to environmental stewardship and the potential for regeneration.
Call out sites displaying ICE recruiitment adverstising
Practitioner:
Various independent actors in Santa Cruz, CA.
Date:
Sep 8 2025
ICE [Immigration & Customs Enforecement] is now heavily recruiting, in part with offers of a $50,000 signing bonus. ICE has run roughshod over the Constitution, targeting people via racial profiling, failing to give people their constitutional rights of due process, and whisking them off to prisons abroad.
The Guerrilla Girls: 'We upend the art world's notion of what's good and what's right'
Practitioner:
Guerilla Girls
Date:
Jan 1 1985
In 1984, a group of women in New York gathered outside the Museum of Modern Art as part of a protest. A group show, An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, was showing 165 artists, 152 male artists exhibited alongside just 13 women. Outraged, they attended the protest, bringing placards and chanting outside the museum. But a handful of women within the larger crowd learned something.
West Palm Beach arts community, drag queens protest against Clematis Street permit denial
Practitioner:
West Palm Beach arts community
Date:
Apr 18 2023
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Supporters of the LGBTQ+ and arts communities in West Palm Beach are protesting the closure of two popular spots for creatives in the city.
Marriage to Peace
Practitioner:
Ning Kong
Date:
Nov 19 2016
At 12:00 noon (New York time) on November 19, 2016, Chinese artist Ning Kong, wearing a wedding dress with hundred dove, appeared at the 911 site in New York. Even though the theme of performance art is calling for peace, the police banned it and showed the handcuffs because doing performance art was not allowed at the 9/11 site. So Kong Ning turned to Times Square, New York, successfully completing her performance art.
Turkey Erdogan: Women rise up over withdrawal from Istanbul Convention
Practitioner:
Feminists in Turkey
Date:
Mar 28 2021
It has been a tumultuous and anxious week for women in Turkey. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree at midnight last Friday, annulling Turkey's ratification of the Istanbul Convention on violence against women, women poured onto the streets of Turkish cities to protest. Further demonstrations are planned.
‘Met Museum, you’re complicit’: artists and activists take over museum’s front steps with giant pro-Palestine quilt
Practitioner:
Palestinian Liberation
Date:
Mar 25 2024
Hundreds of artists, cultural workers and activists gathered on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue in New York on Sunday (24 March), demanding that the most visited museum in the US publicly call for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and commit to preserving Palestinian cultural heritage.
At Frieze, Do Ho Suh and Brother Eul Ho Suh Explore Intergenerational Legacies in Korean Art
Practitioner:
Suh Se Ok
Date:
Sep 6 2024
South Korean artist Do Ho Suh is internationally known for his ghostly, diaphanous architecture and fabric-made objects, which create imaginary spaces that are physically present yet impossible to inhabit. His large-scale, immersive, but impermanent installations serve as “acts of memorialization,” exploring themes of identity, home, and the tension between personal and public space.
Shell Skull Stig: Art Not Oil Galleries
Practitioner:
Art Not Oil
Date:
Aug 5 2005
The group Art Not Oil did a campaign to raise awareness about the oil industry, and their funding of Art. "Art Not Oil has campaigned against Big Oil cultural sponsorship since 2004.
Orca whale light/drone performance in Russia
Practitioner:
Greenpeace
Date:
Feb 17 2023
A performance in support of a bill banning the catch of cetaceans for cultural and educational purposes in Russia. The bill was supposed to pass readings in the lower house of parliament but unfortunately it was postponed; this activity is meant to help generate support for it to pass. The action was timed to coincide with the World Whale and Dolphin Day (Feb 19).
Socially Distant: Stories from a world apart during COVID19 social distancing
Practitioner:
The People Phone
Date:
Jan 1 2020
How it works: 1. Call or text “hello” to (951) 963-3643 to share your experience. Make sure you’re in a quiet place. Maximum recording time is 10 minutes. 2. Please start by telling us where you’re calling from. Perhaps you can even paint a picture of your surroundings for anyone who listens. Then share what you want to say. 3. Hang up when you’re finished.
Against Excessive Quarantine
Practitioner:
The Dorr Brothers
Date:
Apr 1 2020
Protests against state stay-at-home orders have attracted a wide range of fringe activists and ardent Trump supporters. They have also attracted a family of political activists whom some Republican lawmakers have called "scam artists."
Myanmar coup: How citizens are protesting through art
Practitioner:
Myanmar's citizens
Date:
Feb 7 2021
"An atmosphere of fear and anger spread across Myanmar this week as millions of people awoke to find out the military had taken control, ousting the elected government. But how do you fight back in a country where protests have been violently suppressed before? For some, it has meant putting pen to paper and taking the battle online.
For Once, Don't Do It
Practitioner:
Nike
Date:
May 29 2020
Text by Seth Cohen - On Friday night, as U.S. television screens burned with images of peaceful protests turning violent, Nike released a new socially conscious ad calling on Americans to do something quite different than the brand’s usual call to “Just Do It.” Instead, one of the nation’s leading athletic apparel companies called on individuals to not turn their back on the painful issue of racism in the United States.
As Far As My Fingertips Take Me
Practitioner:
Tania El Khoury
Date:
Jun 16 2019
Peter Marks Review from the Washington Post: “As Far as My Fingertips Take Me,” a performance piece about the ordeal of seeking refuge by Tania El Khoury that’s being presented for the next 2½ weeks in the lobby of Woolly Mammoth Theatre. For this hypnotic, one-audience-member-at-a-time experience, you pass through the door of a white-walled booth and slip into a white lab coat before putting on a pair of headphones.
TIME OF THE POET:Second Name of Earth is PEACE.
Practitioner:
Mbizo Chirasha
Date:
Jan 16 0020
MOTHER EARTH is broken from incessant decadent wars carelessly perpetuated by mindless ,vicious political imbeciles. Our natural wealth plundered by greedy ,gluttonous economic dare-devils, imbibing crude oil and fresh blood . Warlord-ism set the suns of our freedom, our earth is torn naked . War is ravaging the beauty of African diamond fields ,We are now Wretched Vagabonds . Warlords are frying peace in oil springs of the Gulf.
Occupy the Men Bathroom
Practitioner:
Maizi Li, Churan Zheng
Date:
Feb 19 2012
On February 19, 2012, the Chinese young feminism leaders, included Maizi Li and Churan Zheng, initiated an activity, "Occupy the Men Bathroom." The protesters occupied the male public restroom and invited the women waiting for the women restroom to use the male one.
White Paper Revolution in Nanjing University of Communication
Practitioner:
Students from Nanjing University of Communication
Date:
Nov 26 2022
Direct Cause: The event that on November 24, several people died in a fire in a residential building in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, due to delayed disaster relief due to the COVID-19 lockdown policy in China, and the indifference of the government towards the incident and the block of message. Primary Cause: The three-year-long lockdown policy and the government’s excessive control over speech and thought led to social discontent.
‘Memorial’
Practitioner:
Cherill Linnett and woman activists
Date:
Mar 8 2020
Cheril Linett is a female artist from Chile, with a background in performance art and stage performance, who primarily focuses her artwork on feminist issues in Chile, especially ones involving violence, murder, hate crime and different kinds of oppression and assault, but also creates artwork reflecting issues in other parts of Latin America.
A Million Hoodie March for Trayvon Martin
Practitioner:
new yorkers
Date:
Mar 21 2012
A march took place Wednesday evening in Manhattan calling for justice in the case of Trayvon Martin. He was an unarmed black teenager who was shot to death by a neighborhood watch captain in Florida last month.
Melting Panthers
Practitioner:
Bob Partington, CLEO Institute
Date:
Sep 27 2020
American artist Bob Partington created a wax sculpture of a Florida panther and her cub to display at a nonprofit zoo in Tampa, Florida this September. When it debuted, the sculpture looked like nothing special. But as the wax began to melt under the heat of the sun, the bodies of the endangered species started to disintegrate. Within a couple days, the mother panther’s melting body revealed a simple message: “More heat, less wildlife.”
The Ugly Conference
Practitioner:
Vanessa Rochelle Lewis, Stephanie Gary
Date:
Mar 23 2019
Last November, when you Googled the phrase “ugly Black woman,” Vanessa Rochelle Lewis’s photograph was the second to come up. “Which I’m offended by,” says Lewis, a Bay Area–based artist and writer, “since I’m an Aries and I like to be number one in everything.”

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