Miku is a Japanese virtual idol. She is 16 years old. Miku is created in 2007 and has been heavily promoted since 2008 and was originally aimed at professional musicians. On September 12, 2007, Amazon.co.jp reported sales of Hatsune Miku totaling 57,500,000 yen, making her the number one selling software of that time. She was the first vocal to be developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media and sung in Japanese.
Shouting is one of Xu Zhen’s early works questioning the limits of individual expression. First exhibited at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, the video shows Xu hiding in crowds and performing a series of loud screams in Shanghai.
We all learn art in school. Every kid loves to draw at some point. People get fascinated with the details of their new camera, or spend free time writing poems. But eventually, there’s a not a teacher telling you how great your are, or the camera gets put away, or you just plain get busy and stop. Years could go by before you start again, if you ever do at all.
Conscious Lee is a public awareness project to help people value and protect their rivers. Rivers are rich sources of life and are vital for clean water. They are beautiful spaces to connect with nature. We all need to appreciate our rivers. We can all help river wildlife and protect this natural amenity for future generations.
Ge Yulu’s artistic practice playfully pulls at the strings of a social system that, although seemingly all-encompassing, is in fact a malleable structure consisting of individual human beings. For his 2016 project Eye Contact, Ge positioned himself in front of a surveillance camera and stared directly into the lens for hours, then negotiated with a security guard to buy the footage.
In 1996, filmmaker John Akomfrah created the character of the Data Thief as a narrative device to offer an insightful study of Afrofuturism in his film The Last Angel of History, which links Black musicians including George Clinton, Derrick May, and Sun Ra to Akomfrah’s thesis about the role of technological fantasy in Black artistry across genres and mediums.
The Dreamland Artist Club project was named after one of the famous amusement parks in Coney Island. The project consisted of more than 25 artists coming together to repaint rides and make custom signs, murals and scenic backdrops for the legendary neighborhood. Most of the artists that participated in this project were from New York City and therefore had a particular interest in the visual culture of the city.
Parió Paula is an all women’s percussion group based in Lima, Peru. These women are truly artistic renegades defying the social norms of Lima’s predominantly male music scene. With a bold message on emphasizing female expression, these ladies have transformed their countless styles of drumming into something effective for their city.
(see full article and short documentary at link below)
Rufina Bazlova is not afraid to surrender her art to activism. Born in Belarus, a former Soviet republic ruled by the authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko for 29 years now, Bazlova knows all too well that being apolitical is a privilege many Eastern Europeans cannot afford. 2020 was a pivotal year for Belarus, not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic but also the presidential elections, which declared Lukashenko president for the sixth time.
A unique piece captured significant attention at the Central Academy of Fine Arts undergraduate graduation exhibition in June. The work featured an "anime-style" girl's skull linked to a human skeleton and internal organs, all encased within a thin film. As visitors entered the exhibit area, her breathing and gaze would alter accordingly.
La Casa Negra is a moving artist squat that occupies houses destined for demolition as temporary venues for site specific performance art in Barranco (Lima, Peru). Artists use all of the available rooms (kitchen, bathrooms, stairs, backyard) to enact a series of critical art pieces, while using the space as a demonstration of artist resilience in an increasingly gentrifying neighborhood.
Laura Poitras’s Academy Award–nominated documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) about photographer Nan Goldin is a powerful and thoughtfully constructed film. Focusing on Goldin’s work with the activist group Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN), it allows viewers to continue appreciating the ongoing rebellion and inspiration of this singular artist.
Foreigners out! Schlingensiefs Container (Ausländer raus! Schlingensiefs Container), alternately named "Wien-Aktion", "Please Love Austria—First European Coalition Week", or "Foreigners Out—Artists against Human Rights", is an art project and television show from 2000 that took place within the scope of the annual Wiener Festwochen. It was created by Christoph Schlingensief and directed by Paul Poet.
Post revolution Tunisia is all too familiar with protest – usually through demonstrations - but one group of activists are using the power of street art to get their message across. Calling themselves “Fanni Raghman Anni” (Arabic for “My Art in Spite of Myself”), the group simply scouts the streets of Tunisia bringing theater and drama to random passers-by.
Earlier this month, an anonymous message was posted to the discussion-board Web site 4chan. In it, the author threatened to hurt the video-game developer Zoe Quinn: “Next time she shows up at a conference we … give her a crippling injury that’s never going to fully heal … a good solid injury to the knees. I’d say a brain damage, but we don’t want to make it so she ends up too retarded to fear us.”
In 2009, clergy from El Oratorio Don Bosco in Italy moved to Polloc, a remote town in Peru near Cajamarca, and began to build a mid-sized cathedral. In conjunction to the construction, they opened up a workshop next to the construction site for the local youth to engage in art-making programming after school and on the weekends.
In August 2015, Weston-Super-Mare - a sleepy seaside town in Somerset, England - suddenly became the top destination for the metropolitan elite, welcoming celebrity guests like Brad Pitt, Jack Black and Mark Ronson. Overnight this quaint town, just 18 miles from Bristol, was transformed by anonymous street artist Banksy when he opened his very own dystopian Disneyland style theme park called ‘Dismaland’.
Two climate change activists targeted an Emily Carr painting at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Saturday.
In a social media post by the account Stop Fracking Around on Twitter, a video shows two activists dousing a painting with an unknown liquid that is said to be maple syrup per the tweet.
The two activists then apparently glued themselves to the wall underneath the painting.
By going viral for the fashionable and aesthetically appeasing art for Trans lives, she has developed a new way to advocate for this cause while simultaneously growing her business. By starting by documenting their journey to living their most authentic life on youtube, they have gravitated to TikTok where they have found particular success in spreading awareness through their art and apparel.
In keeping with his activist turn on 2016’s 4 Your Eyez Only, J. Cole’s new album, KOD, is an exploration of addiction. The title has three different meanings that all speak to this aim: Kids On Drugs, King OverDosed, and Kill Our Demons. Each feeds into the next in this narcotic odyssey.
Jameela Jamil has opened up about how she’s “not here to be liked” in a frank new interview with Meghan Markle.
In the latest episode of Archetypes, Meghan’s Spotify podcast, the Duchess speaks with both Jamil and Shohreh Aghdashloo about the “stereotypes and judgements women face in the world of activism”.
Alexandria "Lexi" Aniyah Rubio was looking forward to playing volleyball when she got to junior high. She dreamed of going to law school one day, and she loved astrology, butterflies, and the color yellow.
In July and August 2013, O Teatrão, a Coimbra based theatre company, presented the project Arruinados, comprising three theatre performances in three abandoned spaces (‘ruins’), one in each of three cities in the Centre region of Portugal located along the Mondego River:Coimbra, Montemoro Velho, and Figueira da Foz.