Projects tagged "Activates (people)"

Energizes and organizes people into action. Can include emotion work
Interwoven Threads: The Art of Community and Sensory Expansion
Practitioner:
Sebastián Mahaluf
Date:
Sep 1 2023
Sebastián Mahaluf stands out as an artist deeply engaged in weaving the complex threads of human connection, community, and the interplay of personal and collective experiences. His notable work, "CONTRADICTION AND TENSION," showcases his approach to art as a participatory experience that bridges individual perceptions with communal narratives.
"We stand in solidarity"-Asian American Artist Confront Racism
Practitioner:
Mike Keo, Monyee Chau, Godzilla: Asian American Art Network
Date:
Apr 2 2020
Unleashed by anxiety over the pandemic, the nationwide rise in anti-Asian hate has served as a call to action for many Asian American artists to take a stand: To actively challenge the historic negative stereotype of the vice- and disease-ridden Yellow Peril; to dismantle the pernicious and divisive myth of the model minority that pits achievements by Asian Americas as judgements against other communities of color; and to advocate for social justice, eq
"What were you wearing?" Survivor Art Installation
Practitioner:
Jen Brockman and Mary Wyandt-HIebert
Date:
Jan 1 2018
It is an art installation that tells the story of 18 victims of sexual assault and what were they wearing at that time. "What were you wearing?"
No Poisonous Pigs
Practitioner:
the Taiwan Anti-ractopamine Union
Date:
Dec 31 2020
President of Taiwan, leader of the Democratic Progressive Party（DDP）, Tsai Ing-wen, at a press conference with no early forecast on August 28, 2020, announcing that from January 1, 2021, American pigs containing ractopamine (Ractopamine) will be opened for those over 30 months old U.S. cattle are imported. Furthermore, the administrative order has only a 7-day notice period.
Singing to Disrupt Housing Auction
Practitioner:
Occupy Wall Street
Date:
Apr 17 2012
Demonstrators aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement sang their way into handcuffs during a Bronx foreclosure auction Monday to protest the housing crisis that continues to plague the borough. They serenaded a courtroom of real estate investors with the lyrics, "Y'all are speculating off people's pain. With all due respect, you should be ashamed."
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.
the bike infrastructure agenda exposed
Practitioner:
Local news
Date:
Apr 1 2021
It has been a long and exhausting battle for the bike activists in Puebla one of the cities in Mexico. Collectives and activist groups have long pushed for including bike infrastructure around the city, in a horizontal, democratic way.
Chinese artist speaks out against zero-Covid policy by wearing 27 hazmat suits in Times Square
Practitioner:
Zhisheng Wu
Date:
Oct 18 2022
On Sunday morning, a puffy, Michelin Man-like figure trudged through Times Square in New York, panting from the exertion of trying to move while wearing 27 hazmat suits. Inside the white cocoon was Zhisheng Wu, a Chinese artist who staged the street performance to criticize China’s unrelenting zero-Covid policy.
Shamecards
Practitioner:
Manuel and Patricia Oliver
Date:
Feb 14 2021
Mimicking the look of iconic "Greetings From" postcards, Manuel and Patricia Oliver, parents of Joaquin Oliver who died in the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, created "Shamecards" featuring 52 cities from around the United States.
Vienna Rye's Zine and Instagram: A Space for Education
Practitioner:
Vienna Rye
Date:
Feb 1 2018
Instagram and Zines have become a tool for activists worldwide, and Vienna Rye (@vrye) has amassed over 126,000 followers by promoting education, mutual aid, and advocacy. They are a self-taught visual artist and revolutionary community organizer, which translates into their artwork. Vienna visualized a better world to build it. To do this, they use her art to confront settler colonialism, racism, and patriarchy.
Abortion Access & Gender-Based Violence in Haiti
Practitioner:
Nègès Mawon
Date:
Mar 30 2023
Haiti is a conservative society where Roman Catholicism shapes many of its social norms. Patriarchal norms, says Haitian feminist Pascale Solages, co-founder and general coordinator of feminist organization Nègès Mawon, have informed its strict views on abortion. In Haiti, women can’t legally access voluntary abortions. Doctors can’t perform them unless the woman’s life is in danger.
P.A.I.N.
Practitioner:
Nan Goldin
Date:
Mar 10 2017
Anti-opioid activists unfurled banners and scattered pill bottles on Saturday inside the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is named for a family connected to the powerful painkilling drug OxyContin. The protest, which was organized by a group started by the celebrated photographer Nan Goldin, started just after 4 p.m., when several dozen people converged at the Temple of Dendur inside the wing.
Bus Regulation: The Musical – The Trilogy
Practitioner:
Ellie Harrison
Date:
Nov 13 2022
Bus Regulation: The Musical (2019 – 2023) is a Trilogy of roller-skating Musicals inspired by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Starlight Express’ performed in three of the UK’s biggest post-industrial city-regions – Greater Manchester, Strathclyde and Merseyside – in collaboration wi
Nikkolas Smith: Art Can Help Show That Black Lives Matter. It Can Also Lead to Activism
Practitioner:
Nikkolas Smith, BLM
Date:
Jun 1 2020
When I watched them kill Elijah McClain, I couldn’t make any art for days. It had been week after week after week of gut-wrenching stories of Black lives taken from this earth too early. I wasn’t sure if I could handle another one. After seeing the way Elijah pleaded for his life while walking home from the convenience store, it was so hard for me to watch and process.
Beautiful Women's Rights Walk
Practitioner:
Meili Xiao
Date:
Sep 15 2012
In 2012, the 24-year-old feminist activist Xiao Meili launched the "Beautiful Women's Rights Walk" anti-sexual assault activity. She set off from Beijing in mid-September and passed through Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Changsha and other cities along the way to reach the destination Guangzhou. She took 114 days and reaches more than 2500 kilometers in this tour.
Myanmar’s Artists Captured the Spirit of the Resistance. Now They’re Continuing the Fight from Abroad
Practitioner:
Chuu Wai Nyein
Date:
Jun 22 2021
Chuu Wai Nyein felt an overwhelming sense of guilt when she first arrived in Paris from Myanmar at the end of April. “I was pushed to leave the country, but it was not how I wanted to leave,” says the 28-year old. As an artist working for the last ten years, mostly in the central city of Mandalay, Chuu built up an international reputation for her expressive paintings of women.
I want a president
Practitioner:
Zoe Leonard
Date:
Oct 11 2016
Installed on the occasion of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, I want a president renders a poignant portrait of the cultural and political climate in the early 1990s in New York City with words that still resonate today.
the Fundred Project
Practitioner:
Mel Chin
Date:
Jan 1 2008
The Fundred Dollar Bill Project, initiated by artist Mel Chin, is a collaborative art project aimed at raising awareness and mobilizing action against the environmental and health threat of lead contamination. It encourages individuals to create their own unique interpretations of $100 bills, symbolizing the value of human lives and the need for a lead-free future.
Mesmerizing Flesh: The Visceral Corporeality of Tamara Kostianovsky's Textile Sculptures
Practitioner:
Tamara Kostianovsky
Date:
Feb 3 2023
For artists exploring themes of violence towards humans and animals, there is a fine line between thoughtfully engaging and needlessly shocking the viewer; being sensationally explicit can turn people away while being tacit or innocuous may fail to make an impact.
As the Taliban Curbs Women’s Rights, Advocates Demand Action
Practitioner:
Afghan women walk along a road in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on July 29, 2022.
Date:
Feb 15 2023
In December – as many around the globe were preparing for the holidays – Sama, a former attorney, remained hunkered down in her house in Kabul, Afghanistan, trying to comprehend how her world had changed.
#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.
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.
This artist’s red shoes stand in for all the women lost to violence
Practitioner:
Elina Chauvet
Date:
Jan 11 2020
Elina Chauvet’s red shoes are worldly. They’ve been in Milan, Italy, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Not just one pair, but hundreds — red boots, red heels, red toddler shoes. They’re not there to see the sights, but to take up space. Especially when the women or girls who would have worn them no longer take up any space, except in the lives of their loved ones.
“Don’t Call Me Chief”: Native Artists Protest Racist NFL Mascots
Practitioner:
No More Native Mascots
Date:
Feb 12 2023
PHOENIX — As Super Bowl LVII was getting underway in Glendale, Arizona, on February 12, artist and Apache Skateboards founder Douglas Miles (San Carlos Apache, Akimel O’odham) was protesting racist mascots in the NFL by painting a mural-style portrait of Geronimo with the words “Don’t Call Me Chief” for a community event at Grassrootz, a Black- and worker-owned bookstore near downtown Phoenix.
LGBT activists ask strangers for hugs in China protest at Weibo censorship
Practitioner:
Chinese LGBT activists
Date:
Apr 19 2018
A social experiment testing the public’s reaction to gay people in China has gone viral. The blindfolded activists stood in public wearing T-shirts that said “I’m gay would you hug me?” and video of the protest then spread rapidly on Weibo, a hugely popular social media platform in China. The social experiment follows a recent announcement by Weibo to ban gay content on its platform of 400 million active users.

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