Projects tagged "Civil Liberties"

When an orchestra director negotiated his cachet in trees
Practitioner:
Claudio Abbado
Date:
Sep 9 2009
Claudio Abbado was an Italian orchestra director (1933 - 2014) who served as chief director at La Scala Theater in Milan from 1968 - 1985. After 18 years of absence, in 2009, he was invited to conduct a concert there. He accepted upon condition that, instead of paying him a monetary honorarium, the city would commit to the planing of 90.000 trees in the city of Milan.
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Virtual Museum Law Conference on the Pandemic Effects
Practitioner:
Work from home Lawyers
Date:
Mar 15 2021
"Work-from-home lawyers and museum staff convened by webinar on 11 and 12 March, for an annual conference on Legal Issues in Museum Administration, hosted by the non-profit American Law Institute with the support of the Smithsonian Institution. This year’s focus was decidedly shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has squeezed museums financially and pushed ever more museum activity into the digital realm.
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3
Student flash mobs in Thailand
Practitioner:
students
Date:
Sep 20 2020
"Thai artists and art students are on the frontline of their country’s swelling pro-democracy movement, calling for reforms of Thailand’s military-backed government, and breaking both taboo and national law to criticise the nation’s monarchy.
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Design For Freedom Summit Shares Strategies For Removing Modern-Day Slavery From Building And Construction Supply Chain
Practitioner:
Grace Farms Foundation
Date:
Mar 29 2024
Shackles. Cotton. The Big House. Americans tend to think of slavery in terms of chattel slavery. Plantation Slavery. Slavery where human beings are bought, sold, and owned. The kind outlawed in the United States by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Slavery as a relic of the 19th Century. “Six of us lived, worked, slept in a 10-by-10 (foot) room without a bed, bathroom, or clean water,” Nasreen Sheikh remembers.
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2
ScareMail
Practitioner:
Benjamin Grosser
Date:
Jan 1 2013
ScareMail is a web browser extension that makes email “scary” in order to disrupt NSA surveillance. Extending Google’s Gmail, the work adds to every new email’s signature an algorithmically generated narrative containing a collection of probable NSA search terms. This “story” acts as a trap for NSA programs like PRISM and XKeyscore, forcing them to look at nonsense.
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6
Wheel of Misfortune
Practitioner:
Civic Party
Date:
Jan 27 2017
Hong Kong’s Lunar New Year fairs draw thousands of visitors who stroll past stalls of potted narcissus, snack on fish balls and snap up the latest plush toys. In recent years, the largest of the fairs, at Victoria Park, has also become a prime site for political expression.
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3
FreeAJStaff
Practitioner:
Al Jazeera, public
Date:
Feb 27 2014
All over the world, journalists and rights groups are protesting the detainment and muzzling of four Al Jazeera staff members in Egypt.
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2
Tamir Rice legacy shows how artists can sensitively engage with racially charged history
Practitioner:
Cleveland Museum of Art
Date:
Nov 24 2019
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Dana Schutz, the acclaimed New York artist who trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art, famously stirred controversy at the 2017 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art with “Open Casket,’’ her painting depicting Emmett Till’s body in its coffin. Till, a black 14-year-old, was murdered and mutilated by white men in Mississippi in 1955 after having been falsely accused of flirting with a white woman.
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4
Philando Castile: remembering his life through the power of art
Practitioner:
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Date:
Jun 28 2018
It all started a few months ago, when the Minneapolis Institute of Art got a phone call from Valerie Castile. Castile is the mother of Philando Castile, the 32-year-old black man who was shot and killed by a police officer in 2016. Valerie Castile has since founded the Philando Castile Relief Foundation, which helps victims of gun violence.
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2
Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns)
Practitioner:
National Rifle Association
Date:
Mar 28 2016
The N.R.A. Reimagines Classic Fairy Tales, With Guns. The world of make-believe can be a scary place, but never fear: Thanks to a series of reimagined fairy tales published online by the National Rifle Association, classic characters like Hansel and Gretel are now packing heat.
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3
North Korean Artist Hopes Reverse Propaganda Will Change Lives Back Home
Practitioner:
Song Byeok
Date:
Jan 1 2018
Song Byeok is one of the most acclaimed Korean artists living today. He is from North Korea, where he was a propaganda artist for the North Korean government for two decades. After defecting in 2002, Byeok has turned his prolific creativity into powerful, satirical art using North Korea’s ruling culture as motifs.
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6
This Clothing Line Tricks AI Cameras Without Covering Your Face
Practitioner:
Cap_able
Date:
Jan 20 2023
A start-up has launched a line of clothing that confuses artificial intelligence (AI) cameras and stops them from recognizing the wearer. Italian start-up Cap_able is offering its first collection of knitted garments that shields the wearer from the facial recognition software in AI cameras without the need to cover their face. Called the Manifesto Collection, the clothing line includes hoodies, pants, t-shirts, and dresses.
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3
Grammys featured on-air weddings of 34 couples
Practitioner:
Grammy Awards
Date:
Jan 26 2014
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.
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4
‘RBG’ documentary reveals how Ruth Bader Ginsburg became a meme — and why that’s so surprising
Practitioner:
Betsy West and Julie Cohen
Date:
May 4 2018
The Ginsburg without photoshopped sunglasses and a crown fueled a revolution with lawsuits instead of protests. She believed in incremental progress instead of bold gestures. She was projected to be a conciliator on the court, not its preeminent liberal dissenter. Now, “everyone wants to take a picture with me.”
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7
Police dogs and firehoses
Practitioner:
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Date:
May 3 1963
Police dogs and firehoses is, for most of the world, the image of Birmingham made by Bull Connor and the Birmingham Police Department during the Birmingham Campaign of the African American Civil Rights Movement.
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2
Giving the World a Middle Finger
Practitioner:
Ai Weiwei
Date:
Jan 1 2005
Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist and activist. He has been vocal and openly critical of the Chinese government’s stance on democracy and human rights. His work has captured global attention and served to bring attention to social injustices, human rights violations and systemic violence. Ai never shies away from saying what he truly feels and he encourages people to state exactly what they want.
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2
3,000 Candles at the Lincoln Memorial #SoAllCanVote
Practitioner:
Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice
Date:
Jun 24 2014
At the same site where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, we lit thousands of candles - one for each signature on our petition - to commemorate the legacy of brave freedom fighters Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner and to stand up for the rights that are once again in peril.
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3
Adrian Piper, Mythic Being, 1973 - 1975
Practitioner:
Adrian Piper
Date:
Jan 1 1973
Adrian Piper disguised her identity, changing her race, sex, and social class in order to experiment in public situations and gauge people’s reactions. She investigated how outwardly visible identity markers (like skin color) impacted others’ perceptions of her character. By manipulating her (apparent) identity to produce reactions, she demonstrated the power and influence of stereotypes (Piper, 1996).
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3
Study of Perspective (& Stools)
Practitioner:
Ai Weiwei
Date:
Jan 1 2014
The son of an exiled political dissident, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s work is inherently political. Since 1995 Ai Weiwei has been traveling the world, photographing himself flipping off iconic monuments of power in his Study of Perspective series.
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3
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:
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4
How Jean-Michel Basquiat's Art Challenges Status Quo
Practitioner:
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Date:
Jan 1 1983
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.
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