On the afternoon of September 11th, nearly a hundred people hugged each other to feel the beauty of the hug on the Paris Square in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, under the leadership of the Chinese artist Gao Brothers. At the beginning of the event, the Germans have not yet adapted to the behavior of embracing strangers, but encouraged by Gao brothers, people have opened their arms and gave the strangers around them a warm hug.
#NYTIMES Why are there no U.S. anti-slavery monuments? http://antislaverymonument.org project is an answer.
Standing 60 feet tall, corten steel of two hollow chain links the upper one broken.
Creative Time, Social Practice Archive: In 2000 Heavy Trash, an anonymous arts organization of designers, architects, and urban planners, implemented its Aqua Line project throughout various parts of Los Angeles. The project involved the installation of false "Future Station Location" signs in the downtown area, notifying passersby of the impending construction of a subway that would connect the downtown to the Westside.
In the Si 8 Do project, Seville activists convened in a neglected barrio during the Euromediterranean Conference on Sustainable Cities, which was taking place in Seville.
What would a chemical attack on NYC look like? How would poisonous gases spread, through the lines of the subway and above ground? These are some of the questions the NYPD and a team of researchers hope to answer this July, when they’ll disperse colorless, odorless, and apparently harmless gases called perflourocarbons around the city and track their movement.
AMNA NAWAZ: Since anti-government protests erupted in Iran last year, people around the world have taken to social media to show their support.
That includes an Iranian American ballerina who's tapping into her own heritage and her art, in solidarity with those pushing for more rights.
The "NewsHour"'s Julia Griffin reports for our arts and culture series, Canvas.
MADE HERE is a documentary series and website focusing on performing artists based in New York City. A collage of intimate interviews, performances and behind-the-scenes footage, MADE HERE mirrors the rich diversity of the artists and communities they serve. It reflects on Performance Artists battle to balance work and art in New York City.
Members of this organization begin the narrative process by examining city neighborhoods and commercial districts for compelling structures that appear to have fallen into disuse —“hidden gems” of the built environment. In varying states of repair, these buildings suggest only stories about the past, not the future.
Beauty in Transition is an artistic project created by multi-media artist Jody Wood, that established a pop-up mobile hair salon providing beauty services including a hair wash, cut, color and/or style service to willing participants living in homeless shelters. By provoking face-to-face dialogue in a calming recuperative salon environment, this project aims to facilitate empathetic understanding and to unravel the reductive label of homelessness.
GrowNYC is a nonprofit that promotes community values through environmental missions. One of GrowNYC's programs is the GreenMarkets, which are fresh produce markets that are set up in various neighborhoods in the city, each one unique to the area. These markets focus on bringing local farmers into the community as well as promoting awareness of seasonal produce in order to limit the environmental damage of importing goods.
Students at art colleges across China are taking a strong stance in the midst of the largest wave of protests to have gripped the country since 1989. As demonstrations against the government’s strict Covid-19 policies erupted across the country over the weekend, students rallied on campuses to create protest art and graffiti.
Some 70 or 80 local activists, politicians and other concerned citizens gathered outside Irvington Village Hall Sunday evening, two days after the release of gut-wrenching video of the murder of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols at the hands of policemen in Memphis.
Many artists are inspired to bring climate change into their work after a direct experience with it. Catherine Sarah Young hopes her work helps people understand and talk about their experiences with climate change.
Luzinterruptus turns their art activism towards the overabundance of dog doo littering the city’s streets.
The studio inflated 500 poop-scoopin' plastic bags and placed a lightbulb inside each one.
Installation lasted nine hours.
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)
On January 12, 2016, Shanghai's temperature dropped to its lowest of the year. A little girl was seen selling matches in the cold wind on Bund street. The little girl, wearing a classic dress, wrapped in an ocher-red scarf and carrying a small bamboo basket full of matches, gave matches to passers-by.
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.
The collective Ndaku Ya La Vie Est Belle, a group of Kinshasa street performers turn their bodies into living sculptures, and use them to political ends. Among the artists is Jared, who regularly takes to the streets dressed as Robot Annonce. The costume, made from broken radio parts, is designed to raise awareness of fake news. “People receive so much incorrect information and many inaccuracies are spread. I want to fight this,” says Jared.
On March 24, 1992, a fake inter-office memorandum from the then Mayor of the City of New York, David Dinkins, was leaked to the press. A handwritten Post-it note was attached which read "Thought you might be interested in seeing what the Mayor's up to! 'Mayor to Sell the Brooklyn Bridge!' Think this will fly?? I love New York!!!"
"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)
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.
A Centro Social Okupado Autogestionado (Self-Managed Occupied Social Center) or CSOA is an occupied building dedicated to the development of social and cultural activities. They are part of the “movimiento okupa” (“squatter movement”), a label created and circulated by the mainstream press.
The artist has assembled a set of 300 installations around New York City, based around the concept of fences and borders, to showcase the ‘narrow-minded’ attempts used to ‘create some kind of hatred between people’
What is looping? Somewhere in between art, activism, and wackiness is this liberating experience. Matthew Silver and Fritz Donnelley, two New York City based performance artists got lonely acting silly in their underwear in public. Knowing that there were enough free spirits to join them, they started "Looping" and invited everyone to join them.
In early 2012, a group of artists, activists and assorted other odd balls got together to form People's Tours. The idea was to give walking tours in the Boston area. Standard enough. But instead of the usual history, we would talk about social justice, contested spaces, important protests, and shady corporations.
So far, the group has consisted of Dave Taber, Heather McCann, Kristin Parker, Neil Horsky, and Tim Devin.