Projects tagged "Shifts (culture)"

Shifts the cultural landscape in order to imagine and enable change.

Mattress Protest/Carry That Weight
Practitioner:
Emma Sulkowicz
Date:
Sep 1 2014
Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) (2014–2015) was a work of endurance/performance art which Emma Sulkowicz conducted as a senior thesis during the final year of a visual arts degree at Columbia University in New York City.[1]
Paddling Home
Practitioner:
Kasey Wong
Date:
May 4 2009
From Public Delivery: Kacey Wong has a knack for creating art that investigates the space between people and their surrounding environment. Paddling Home, which was performed on the Hong Kong Victoria Harbor, was a star feature in the Hong Kong contemporary art scene.
Now What?
Practitioner:
The pirARTes
Date:
Apr 25 2021
Now What? project has just finished a series of interactive workshops, where global citizens came together to reflect on the global sustainability issues, got inspired and empowered to imagine the world anew through poetry and imagery. With the focus on the community and climate action, the project is live on social platforms and soon to be a collective street art too.
China’s Creative Acts of Protest: Memes, Puns and Blank Sheets of Paper
Practitioner:
People of China
Date:
Nov 28 2202
In Shanghai, a vigil grew into a street protest where many held blank sheets of white paper in a symbol of tacit defiance. In Beijing, students at Tsinghua University raised signs showing a math equation devised by the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann, whose surname in Chinese is a homonym for “free man.”
Moving Chains
Practitioner:
Charles Gaines
Date:
Oct 15 2022
Moving Chains is a monumental 110-foot long kinetic sculpture that evokes the hull of a ship, built from steel and Sapele, a tree native to West Africa commonly referred to as African Mahogany. Inside of the sculpture, nine chains run overhead: rotating on a maritime sprocket system, eight of the chains represent the pace of the currents in New York Harbor, while a ninth central chain moves more quickly, mimicking the pace of a ship in transit.
untitled (Long Live the Real King)
Practitioner:
Unknown
Date:
Feb 24 2025
An A.I. generated video of Donald Trump sucking Elon Musk's toes was broadcast at the Department of Housing and Development headquarters in DC in February of 2025. As an actual art piece, we can debate if the video itself is art. However, the caption, subject matter of the fake video, and chosen location to broadcast is definitely a strategic work of creative activism. From the New York Times:
Love Queer Cinema Week (aka the Beijing Queer Film Festival)
Practitioner:
Students of Beijing University, Beijing Queer Film Festival commitee
Date:
Dec 1 2001
Founded 19 years ago, the Beijing Queer Film Festival (aka Love Queer Cinema Week) is one of the grassroots film festivals in China focusing on independent queer film screenings and cultural exchange activities. We aim to expand public discussions on sexuality / gender identity / gender expression, we aim to give a platform to sexual and other minorities in China and the World, and we celebrate diversity.
AnAbhainnÁlainn
Practitioner:
Creativity and Change
Date:
Mar 22 2021
We designed a WaterWaysWalk with interactive activity suggestions linked to both a Website and a hardcopy Zine, either of which could be utilised on the walk to raise awareness about Water Sustainability. Below is an extract from the website explaining what the focus was:
Ice Watch
Practitioner:
Olafur Eliasson
Date:
Feb 13 2018
From Public Delivery: For Ice Watch (2014), he extracted 30 blocks of glacial ice from the waters of Greenland and in 2018 strategically placed them in front of Tate Modern in London . The ice was left here to melt. Ice Watch was to inspire public action against climate change, advocating for a rapid public response.
La Radical Gai & Lesbianas Sin Duda: Spreading Awareness to the AIDS Epidemic in Spain
Practitioner:
La Radical Gai & Lesbiana Sin Duda
Date:
Dec 1 1994
On December 1, 1994 also known as World AIDS day, participating members from LSD (Lesbianas Sin Duda), La Radical Gai, and other allies sought out to protest against the push back of rejection that many of them were receiving from the medical and social perspective.
WE CHANT RESISTANCE!
Practitioner:
Mbizo Chirasha
Date:
Apr 19 0020
This special EDition is a revolutionary chant against the menacing cantankerous demonic , satanic COVID 19. And again doubles as a bold and poetic supplication to the great Almighty God to release us off this pandemic bondage. This Edition is a poetically driven spiritual prayer for freedom of expression and freedom after expression.
Organization for the Democratization of the Visual Arts
Practitioner:
DHAdmann
Date:
Jun 10 2026
ODBK is an activist organization that aims to create a more equal, diverse, inclusive, transparent and democratic art world. ODBK seeks to do this by diversify and increase the number of people who understand and engage with contemporary art.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt
Practitioner:
Cleve Jones
Date:
Oct 11 1987
Cleve Jones's powerful vision for memorializing those lost to AIDS was realized in October 1987 in Washington D.C. It showcased the artistic contributions of people who'd lost loved ones to the virus from a number of US metropolitan centers. The quilt has continued to grow for the nearly 40 years since. By 1992, the AIDS Memorial Quilt included panels from every state and 28 countries.
The New Culture Movement
Practitioner:
Chinese progessive writers
Date:
Sep 15 1915
The New Culture Movement was initiated by Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Cai Yuanpei, Qian Xuan and other writers who had received Western education (called the new-style education at the time). It is an ideological and cultural innovation and literary revolutionary movement.
For China’s Halloween of Discontent, He Went as a Surveillance Camera
Practitioner:
Wenxin Fan, Rachel Liang, Shen Lu, WSJ
Date:
Nov 1 2023
Several nights of Halloween celebration in Shanghai provided a vivid, if indirect, commentary this week on the malaise gripping the world’s second-largest economy.
Teachers in Their Power
Practitioner:
Kat Clark
Date:
Apr 27 2023
Teachers in Their Power is a storytelling project focused on changing the narrative about the teaching profession.
American Indian artist Brian Larney uses a mix of art, activism to chronicle Indigenous history
Practitioner:
Brian Larney
Date:
Dec 26 2022
Brian Larney is an AI.tivist or American Indian artist. He is also an Artivist where he performs Artivism, a concept that includes art as a form of activism.
Blixel: (Re)stock Image Collection
Practitioner:
Kenya Robinson
Date:
Apr 21 2021
The purpose of this project was the permeate stock images with more depictions of Black people. Stock images are usually easily found and utilized, showcasing people doing everyday activities or scenes. To boost representation of Black people in this particular image field, were left out, so the artist chose to recreate popular stock images with Black models to showcase representation and shed light on the lack of diversity in these photos.
Transforming Mental Health and Feminism through Art
Practitioner:
Sravy Attaluri
Date:
May 13 2021
She seeks to utilize her feminist art to spread awareness on mental health issues. Sravy is a nomad in her own right, and throughout her experiences in Asia she has noticed that there are stimas surrounding women's autonomy and how they handle mental health struggles.
NYU Activist Group on the Streets
Practitioner:
EMERGENYC
Date:
May 17 2017
On a sidewalk in the Village in downtown Manhattan, an African-American woman leans on her elbows and knees, wearing only black underpants. Scrawled in black marker all over her body are the words "Ain't I a Woman?" Across the street, another woman lies face down, sunbathing on a large sheet of tinfoil. The sentence "White Supremacy Is Terrorism" is inked across her white skin, which is turning pink under the hot sun.
American Born Chinese
Practitioner:
Gene Yang
Date:
Jul 6 2006
American Born Chinese is a graphic novel published in 2006 by the American author and illustrator Gene Luen Yang. Through three interweaving stories that span from the 16th century to the present, the novel explores issues of Chinese American identity, anti-Asian racism, and assimilation. American Born Chinese is the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award.
"Be the first follower" dance video
Practitioner:
Shirtless guy
Date:
May 26 2000
If you've learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let's watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons: A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he's doing is so simple, it's almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!
‘Not Yours’
Practitioner:
Beata Kruszynski
Date:
May 1 0000
“My image was inspired by the #MeToo Revolution, my personal experiences with the male gaze and a healthy amount of frustration and repulsion. What I hope to convey in this image is the sense of verbal, physical and energetic male ownership that is placed on women in society.” — Beata Kruszynski is a freelance illustrator and art teacher in Ontario, Canada.
Drawing the line: meet the Romanian artist-activist tackling world crises one cartoon at a time
Practitioner:
Dan Perjovschi
Date:
Jan 1 2016
Dan Perjovschi is one of Romania’s foremost artistic voices. Although known as a talented multi-disciplinary artist in his home country, particularly for his early performance work, he is most widely known internationally for his massive drawing installations.
Hedonistic pictures of Barcelona’s queer underworld
Practitioner:
Leo Adef
Date:
Apr 15 2021
Topless queer men light spliffs on the beach. A trans man injects testosterone on the toilet. Drag queens nonchalantly scroll through their phones and smoke. These are just some of the images that make up the new book from Leo Adef. Titled WARP, it’s comprised of photographs captured across four years spent in Barcelona's queer underworld

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