Projects tagged "Civil Liberties"

Raise Your Umbrellas: How Denise Ho went from Cantopop queen to pro-democracy activist
Practitioner:
Denise Ho
Date:
Jan 1 2014
In Hong Kong in 2014 the song Raise Your Umbrella by Denise Ho and Anthong Wong became an anthem for the pro-democracy movement known as the Umbrella Revolution. The song was written after police fired tear gas into the crowds when protestors filled the streets.
Abortion Access & Gender-Based Violence in Haiti
Practitioner:
Nègès Mawon
Date:
Mar 30 2023
Haiti is a conservative society where Roman Catholicism shapes many of its social norms. Patriarchal norms, says Haitian feminist Pascale Solages, co-founder and general coordinator of feminist organization Nègès Mawon, have informed its strict views on abortion. In Haiti, women can’t legally access voluntary abortions. Doctors can’t perform them unless the woman’s life is in danger.
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.
Response to James Cohan Gallery (October 19th, 2017)
Practitioner:
Chinatown Art Brigade
Date:
Oct 19 2017
October 19, 2017
My World Is In Your Blindspot
Practitioner:
Tenzing Rigdol
Date:
Jul 1 2014
This is a series of paintings reflecting the struggle and sacrifices made by the Tibetan people for independence. The author is Tenzing Rigdol, who is a Tibetan and influenced a lot by the Dalai Lama and traditional Tibetan culture. The paintings are full of Tibetan cultural elements. For instance, the characters created in the paintings are Tibetan monks, who are the typical representatives of their culture.
New Beijing, New Marriage: A Milestone Film in China’s LGBTQ Movement
Practitioner:
Fan Popo, David Cheng
Date:
Feb 14 2009
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.
Lebanon’s migrant domestic workers demand equal rights
Practitioner:
domestic workers
Date:
May 5 2012
There are over 200,000 migrant domestic workers living in Lebanon today — a large number when you considered that Lebanon’s population is only a little over 4 million. Most migrant workers live with their Lebanese employers, cleaning their houses, washing their clothes, cooking their food and looking after their children. Yet these workers are not included under Lebanon’s labor laws — they are not entitled to
Prague's Lennon Wall
Practitioner:
public
Date:
Feb 8 2015
Prague's Lennon Wall is a tourist attraction to some, and a participatory street art haven for others. Directly opposite of the French embassy, the wall has been filled with evolving art and graffiti since the 80s. The wall received its first public inscription, a tribute to John Lennon, following Lennon's assassination in September 1980.
A Legal Guide Helps Artists Make and Protect Protest Art
Practitioner:
Harvard University’s Cyberlaw Clinic and metaLAB
Date:
Jan 22 2018
Harvard University’s Cyberlaw Clinic and metaLAB have created a free guide for making protest art while navigating intellectual property law.
Kurt Hiller's Literary Activism
Practitioner:
Kurt Hiller
Date:
Sep 23 1928
Kurt Hiller’s Literary Activism 
All Power to All People
Practitioner:
Hank Willis Thomas
Date:
Sep 1 2017
Located in Thomas Paine Plaza, across the street from City Hall, Hank Willis Thomas’s All Power to All People was a public art intervention that dealt with racial identity and representation in Philadelphia.
Freedom of Speech
Practitioner:
Tania Bruguera
Date:
Mar 29 2009
The Winds of Art, and of Freedom, Blew for a Few Moments in Havana 
In Burma, dogs ridicule the regime
Practitioner:
Burmese dissidents
Date:
Sep 15 2007
Dogs featured in one ruse to ridicule the regime—pictures of dictator Than Shwe were hung around the necks of the stray dogs that roam the streets of Rangoon. The pictures, which rapidly found their way onto the Internet, are the work of an exiled Burmese satirist who goes by the name of Mr Creator. Downloaded copies of his pictures and cartoons are popular items among cyber dissidents.
Sima Qian: China's 'grand historian'
Practitioner:
Chinese historians, Carrie Gracie
Date:
Oct 7 2012
Sima Qian: China's 'grand historian' By Carrie Gracie BBC News, Beijing Speaking truth to power has always been a high-risk strategy in China. Its rulers tend to prefer flattery, and writers who forget this do so at their peril. China's "grand historian" - 2,000 years ago - was one of many who have paid a terrible price.
#HateIsAVirus
Practitioner:
Activists against COVID-19-related hate crimes
Date:
Apr 6 2020
Activists fighting coronavirus-driven hate crimes are rallying on social media to turn masks into a symbol, rather than a target in racist attacks Jeff Elder Apr 6, 2020, 2:03 PM Activists against COVID-19-related hate crimes are leading a social media campaign using images of people in masks to fight back against attacks on Asian-Americans, which Congress and the FBI say are increasing.
Claiming Territory with Ink_ a street calligraphy graffiti artist in Hong Kong
Practitioner:
Tsang Tsou-Choi
Date:
Jul 5 1980
A toothless garbageman who once wandered Hong Kong’s streets with dingy bags of ink and brushes tied to his crutches is now the subject of a major retrospective. About 300 calligraphic works by the late Tsang Tsou-choi — who is best known by his self-dubbed title, the King of Kowloon — are showing at the ArtisTree art space in a high glass tower.
Ghana Thinktank. Developing the first world.
Practitioner:
Christopher Robbins, John Ewing, Matey Odonkor, Maria Del Carmen Montoya
Date:
Feb 1 2006
Ghana ThinkTank is an international collective that “develops the first world” by flipping traditional power dynamics, asking the “third world” to intervene into the lives of the people living in the so-called “developed” world.
A Haunting Artistic Tribute to Garment Workers Killed in Bangladesh and the US
Practitioner:
Artist Rachel Breen, Poet Alison Morse
Date:
Apr 1 2018
NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Exactly 1,281 white garments hang from the ceiling of the Perlman Teaching Museum’s Braucher Gallery. The collared shirts, knit sweaters, tights, and other items of clothing glow with an eerie luminosity.
The “Radical Edits” of Alexandra Bell
Practitioner:
Alexandra Bell
Date:
May 4 2017
The artist Alexandra Bell‘s “Counternarratives” series highlights journalism’s tendency toward obfuscation and slant.
NYC Street Art Map
Practitioner:
Huffington Post
Date:
Jan 26 2014
Huffington Post put together a digital, interactive map of some of the so-called best and brightest street art collections. Street art is important because it allows artists, usually from the community where the street art is taking place, to interact with the community and bring color/brightness to the environment.
Horrible bosses: masked activists publicly shame businesses in Bologna
Practitioner:
Il Padrone di Merda
Date:
Oct 1 2019
On a warm summer afternoon in the Italian city of Bologna, a group of around 15 young people march through the crowded city centre to a high-end pastry shop in Strada Maggiore.
Yemen Women Use Digital Tech to Improve Society with Safe Streets
Practitioner:
Defying Silence
Date:
May 14 2012
From Women's News NetworkYEMEN: Even though the connection to the internet has been intermittent at best and often too slow, women advocates in Yemen are now working to push digital tech as a means to improve society and gain human rights. As women continue to battle extreme sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo, Egypt, women
The Dark Side: O'Keefe
Practitioner:
James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles
Date:
Sep 3 2009
Trickery and disguise, usually followed by revealing the truth, are often tactics used by liberal activism, like the Yes Men for example. When used by the right, however, it can have different implications. Pretending to be a CEO or billionaire in order to expose corporate greed and corruption is clearly different then pretending to be a minority. The use of disguise can manipulate and shed light on hierarchies of power.
Above's Blood Diamond
Practitioner:
ABOVE
Date:
Apr 10 2012
Africa has had a devastating history of blood diamond wars. Blood diamond refers to a diamond mined in a war zone and then sold to finance an invading army's war efforts, usually in Africa where more than two-thirds of the worlds diamonds are extracted. This site specific social / political word play was painted on the exterior wall of Johannesburg's largest diamond trader Jewel City.
Artist Rufina Bazlova uses embroidery as a form of ‘gentle protest’
Practitioner:
Rufina Bazlova
Date:
Jan 1 2020
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.

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