Projects tagged "Activates (people)"

Energizes and organizes people into action. Can include emotion work
Erasing the Border
Practitioner:
Ana Teresa Fernández
Date:
May 6 2011
From Public Delivery:
Montreal's 'casseroles' cook up a storm over Quebec's anti-protest law
Practitioner:
Casseroles
Date:
May 18 2012
"Every night, at 8pm, during 15 minutes, take a casserole or any object that makes some noise and bang it with all the wrath that Bill 78 inspires you!" Citizens in Quebec adopted 'cacerolazo,' a form of popular protest which consists of a group of people making noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils in order to call for attention.
Ivanka Vacuuming
Practitioner:
Jennifer Rubell
Date:
Feb 1 2019
From Public Delivery: "The art piece, which was showcased at the Flashpoint Gallery in Washington D.C. from February 1 to 17, 2019, allowed visitors to interact with it. The audience had a pile of crumbs placed right in front of the three-walled setup, which they would through and watch as ‘Ivanka’ vacuumed them all up.
Nike and ‘For Once, Just Don’t Do It’
Practitioner:
Nike
Date:
May 29 2020
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.
Photographer Shoog McDaniel celebrates fatness in all its glory
Practitioner:
Shoog McDaniel
Date:
Jan 1 2016
The Florida-based photographer and artist talks through their creative process, self-acceptance, and overcoming Instagram’s anti-nude algorithm
Free the vaccine for COVID-19
Practitioner:
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines and the Center for Artistic Activism
Date:
Feb 1 2020
Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 is a campaign aimed at securing everyone access to Covid-19 vaccine.
Groups Build Parks From Parking Spaces
Practitioner:
Rebar
Date:
Sep 20 2024
Originally a project of San Francisco-based art and design studio Rebar, Park(ing) Day participants from Tucson to Tehran set up temporary installations ranging from simple unrolled sod to art galleries and even free health clinics.
Balls Across America
Practitioner:
The Yes Men
Date:
Jan 1 2008
The Survivaball made its first appearance in 2006, when "Halliburton representatives" attended a conference on catastrophic climate change and demonstrated the functionality of the large inflatable suits ("a gated community for one"), which keep corporate managers safe from global warming. Not long afterward, in Berlin, the Yes Men learned they also work as disruptive, arrest-resistant tools.
Birds Watching
Practitioner:
Jenny Kendler
Date:
May 1 2018
Birds Watching I, 2018 was created for Storm King Art Center's Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, in partnership with NRDC, which ran from May–Nov 2018, and featured 100 U.S. climate-threatened species derived from Audubon's first report. That work was reinstalled as a public sculpture in Chicago on the elevated 606 Bloomingdale Trail between St. Louis Ave. and Kimball Ave. and is fully-accessible via the Spaulding Ave. ramp.
Performance Art “Not to Leave the Cage Unless You Have to” in Beijing Film Academy
Practitioner:
An anonymous student from Beijing Film Academy
Date:
Nov 22 2021
Direct Cause: Students' freedom to enter and leave the campus has been restricted for two weeks, but the university has not even issued an official document, only a verbal rule of "not leaving the campus unless necessary." Objective: To protest the arbitrary closure policy of Beijing Film Academy.
A TikTok Watermelon Filter Raising Money for Gaza Highlights the Platform’s Potential for Fundraising
Practitioner:
Jourdan Johnson
Date:
Nov 16 2023
A watermelon filter on TikTok is allowing users to raise funds to support civilians in Gaza, where more than 11,000 people have been killed since Israel began an offensive military attack on the Gaza Strip in October, after a Hamas attack killed 1,400 people in Israel and saw roughly 200 civilians taken hostage.
Instantaneous ownership
Practitioner:
Zou Yaqi, China News
Date:
May 21 2021
"Why should I play a celebrity and live in Beijing for 21 days without spending money?" From May 1st to May 21st, 2021, I spent 21 days in Beijing without spending money, and I was as elegant as a celebrity. I recorded this behavior through video. Video "Instant Ownership" 28-minute graduation exhibition version of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (click to watch)
Papel Machete Fights for Liberation
Practitioner:
Papel Machete
Date:
May 1 2006
The work of a radical theater and puppetry collective, known as Papel Machete, produces and performs throughout Puerto Rico and the United States. Papel Machete was established on May 1, 2006 during protests responding to the government shutdown and political and economic crisis prompted by Puerto Rico’s status as a United States colony.
Vietnam comes to Washington
Practitioner:
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Date:
Jun 15 1971
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.
menstrual pad mutual aid boxes
Practitioner:
Chinese University Students
Date:
Oct 30 2020
Since 2020, university students across China have launched a grassroots initiative to combat menstrual stigma by placing “menstrual pad mutual aid boxes” in campus restrooms. These boxes, often accompanied by signs reading “Take one if you need it, donate if you can,” provide free sanitary pads to anyone caught off guard by their period—offering both practical relief and a symbolic challenge to the cultural silence surrounding menstruation.
Once banned for his work, anti-apartheid activist highlights role of politics in art
Practitioner:
Gavin Jantjes
Date:
Jun 19 2024
In 1978, while studying print-making in Hamburg, Gavin Jantjes was deemed a persona non grata by South Africa. His crime? Creating a series of prints that documented the violence and discrimination in the apartheid state, which he gathered together under the tongue-in-cheek name of a "colouring book".
These Moms Fought for a Home—And Started a Movement
Practitioner:
Moms 4 Housing
Date:
May 12 2020
When Bay Area activists Moms 4 Housing began their campaign, they were fighting gentrification and institutional poverty. Now, as California's housing crisis compounds during the COVID-19 pandemic, their work has taken on new significance.
"Gold Rice" Thrown into the Huangpu River
Practitioner:
Yexin Yang
Date:
Oct 17 2021
By throwing away 1,000 pure gold rice grains into a river, a Chinese artist, who wanted to raise public awareness about food waste, found his behavior was not well received by the general public who called the performance "fake art and a waste of money."
The Great Migration Series
Practitioner:
Jacob Lawrence
Date:
May 12 1941
National Public Radio (NPR): There's no historical marker outside Jacob Lawrence's childhood home in New York City's Harlem neighborhood. But Khalil Gibran Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has an idea of what it might say: "Here lived one of the 20th century's most influential visual artists, a man named Jacob Lawrence, who was a child of southern migrants."
Zhang Donghui, a young artist, was detained for more than three months and had to pay 3,995 yuan in compensation for writing the words "Three years, I have become numb."
Practitioner:
Zhang Donghui
Date:
Aug 17 2022
Zhang Donghui, born in 1992, is a native of Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China. He graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2017. He has been living and working as a professional artist in Beijing since then.
Negro Matapacos
Practitioner:
Maldito Perrito
Date:
Jan 1 2015
The streets of Santiago are once again alive with the spirit of revolution. For weeks now, working-class Chileans have occupied national monuments and blocked major intersections in protest of widespread inequality. They desire full reform — a request so long in the making that it is practically tradition. The country’s floundering political elite offer half measures while dispatching riot police and the military.
Washing the Flag
Practitioner:
People
Date:
May 1 2000
“It might not seem that an act of public laundry could unsettle a president with a well-deserved reputation for inflexibility, corruption, and brutality. But mass washing ceremonies were a key element in getting rid of Peru’s unpopular president, Alberto Fujimori, after more than a decade in power.
Watermelon Sunday - 100% Plant Based Cookout
Practitioner:
Watermelon Sunday
Date:
Jun 11 2019
Starting in 2019 out of the East Harlem neighborhood in New York, Watermelon has served as recurring series of cookout-themed events that are 100% vegan, while also centering BIPOC businesses. People from all over the city come to the reoccurring events to enjoy different vegan recipes and learn about different aspects of the vegan lifestyle and activism. Brands and organizations are welcome to participate upon coordination with the organizers.
In Mexico, Women Go on Strike Nationwide to Protest Violence
Practitioner:
Feminist Organizations
Date:
Mar 9 2020
MEXICO CITY — Tens of thousands of women vanished from streets, offices and classrooms across Mexico on Monday, part of a nationwide strike to protest the violence they suffer and to demand government action against it. The women’s absence from public spaces was intended to be a reminder that every day, 10 women in Mexico are killed — and so disappear forever, organizers said.
Where the Tides Ebb and Flow
Practitioner:
Pedro Marzorati
Date:
Oct 12 2015
As you walk through Paris and especially in the Montsouris Park, one cannot help but notice the blue busts that appear to be rising from under the surface of the water. This artwork is known as Where the Tides Ebb and Flow created by Pedro Marzorati , an Argentinian artist.

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