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.
On a damp and rainy Sunday in October of 1935, Munro Leaf sat down to write a story. He had been eager to work with his friend – the illustrator Robert Lawson – for some time and so he decided to pen a book which he felt might suit the illustrator’s skills. Lawson was a master at drawing animals but horses, dogs, cats, rabbits and mice had all been done a thousand times already.
Nadya Tolokonnikova is a Siberian artist and a creator of the feminist protest art collective Pussy Riot. Tolokonnikova’s political actions and wide-ranging performance interventions have established her as a leading voice in the fight against authoritarian power. During her residency, she will compose performances that demonstrate her multifaceted approach to resisting systems of oppression and dehumanization.
Regina Galindo is a Guatemalan performance artist that uses her body as a means to explore many of the human rights violations in Guatemala. In one of her performances, " no perdemos nada con nacer," or " we don't lose anything by being born," the artist "disposes" of herself in a plastic bag.
Protesters left 7,000 pairs of shoes in front of the Capitol building Tuesday to symbolize the number of children killed by gun violence in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012.
From 8:30 am to 2 pm, the shoes were displayed on the southeast lawn in the hope of sending a clear message to Congress: Reform gun control legislation or more children will be killed by gun violence.
On March 10, 1914, Mary Richardson slashed Velasquez's "Rokeby Venus" with a small axe during public hours at the National Gallery in London. A militant suffragette protesting the force-feeding of imprisoned suffragettes in prison (and the Cat and Mouse Act which released the starving women only until they were slightly healthier only to imprison them again), Richardson released this statement after her arrest:
Our Action: We set up “I’m every Woman” as a 3D street installation. It took place on the Boardwalk, Cork City on the weekend of International Women’s week.
Our aims were to promote gender-equality. As a group we identified women as locally and globally dehumanized. We challenged this by honouring women and interacting with people we encountered to celebrate women, both locally and globally.
At least nine protesters were arrested during a protest Tuesday at Geo Group headquarters — a Florida-based private prison company that operates facilities nationwide.
The White Paper Movement was a large-scale, decentralized protest movement that erupted across China in late November 2022, initially sparked by a student demonstration at the Communication University of China, Nanjing.
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:
Shirin Neshat’s Women of Allah is a photographic series exploring the complex identities of Muslim women in post-revolutionary Iran. Combining black-and-white portraits, Persian calligraphy, and symbolic elements such as guns and veils, Neshat interrogates themes of martyrdom, violence, femininity, and resistance.
Puerto Rico doesn’t know what’s going on here, and if they do, they’re ignoring us.” So opens Gabriel Miranda’s documentary Vietnam, Puerto Rico. Focused on the coastal community of Vietnam, which is located in the Guaynabo, the doc tells the story of a disenfranchised population being displaced over the past two decades to make room for a glitzy new waterfront development.
Samaria Rice, left, and Terrence Spivey welcome the crowd at the Tamir Rice Sweet 16 event to raise funds for a new youth oriented cultural center Thursday, June 14th, 2018, at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by Tim Harrison/Special to The Plain Dealer
Inspired to carry on Tamir's legacy
In the Ukraine, a country where females are victims of sexual trafficking and gender oppression, a new tribe of empowered women is emerging. Calling themselves the “Asgarda”, the women seek complete autonomy from men. Residing in the Carpathian Mountains, the tribe is comprised of 150 women of varying ages, primarily students, led by 30 year-old Katerina Tarnouska.
Earlier this year Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei recorded a gangnam style video, dancing handcuffed, sending a message to the Chinese authorities who responded by banning the video as soon as it came online. British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor
"The Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) is a small, informal group of people who are unconditionally opposed to the installation and use of video surveillance cameras in public places.
Former colleagues of Abdulhadi Al Khawaja from Front Line Defenders today held a silent vigil at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Dublin to urge the King of Saudi Arabia to use his influence with Bahrain to enable Abdulhadi to travel to Denmark for medical treatment.
LOS ANGELES — At the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, pop’s megastars will compete for the music industry’s most prestigious trophy, and put on flashy performances that are sure to ricochet through social media.
Alice Paul, along with Lucy Burns, joined the National American Woman suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1912. They were allowed to take over the NAWSA Congressional Committee in DC but were given no office or funds. For months Paul and Burns fundraised and significantly increased awareness for the cause. On March 3, 1913 (the eve of President Wilson's inauguration) Paul organized a parade, unparalleled in the capital.
A group of German doctors have posed naked in an attempt to draw attention to shortages of protective clothing and equipment.
Calling their protest Blanke Bedenken, or Naked Qualms, members of the group said they felt at risk from coronavirus and claimed their calls for help over several months had gone unheeded.
The Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf opens “The Gardener” with the declaration: “I am an agnostic filmmaker.” From anyone else, this might seem like a simple statement, but not from the complex Mr. Makhmalbaf. In 1974, when he was 17, religious and involved in a guerrilla group, he stabbed a policeman, for which he received a bullet to the stomach and a prison sentence.
Russia is the midst of a strict COVID-19 lockdown. Although protesters cannot take to the streets, they are still holding mass demonstrations — digitally.
New Beijing, New Marriage is a documentary shot by Fan Popo, a Chinese gay rights activist in 2009. The film recorded that a gay couple and a lesbian couple, who were volunteers instead of real homosexual couples, were having their wedding photos taken at Qianmen Street on Valentine’s Day. Qianmen Street is a crowded and famous shopping street in Beijing.
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist who rose to fame in the 1980s. He is known for his graffiti-inspired paintings that often engage with issues surrounding racism and inequality. Basquiat's work challenged the status quo and incited a powerful social commentary on the struggles of marginalised social groups.