Projects tagged "Corporate Power"

ANZ is Out of Order Campaign - Grassroots action against ANZ Bank in Australia
Practitioner:
Katso, Climate Change Activists
Date:
Feb 6 2013
On the 6th February 2013, 40 activists across 6 states plastered 110 ANZ ATMs with 'Out of Order' notices, sharing them on social media the following day. The objective was to use a hoax style action to exploit mainstream media sensitivity around ANZ Bank's unethical funding of fossil fuel projects that had been generated by Jonathan Moylan's Whitehaven Hoax a week earlier.
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Anti-Capitalism Art on the Louvre's Glass Pyramid
Practitioner:
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Date:
Apr 24 2013
For the first time since its controversial installation in 1989, the I.M. Pei-designed Louvre Pyramid has been decorated in a museum-sanctioned act of anti-capitalist activism.
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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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The Sugar Sphinx
Practitioner:
Kara Walker
Date:
May 1 2014
Over the past twenty-five years or so, ever since her spectacular New York début at the Drawing Center, in 1994, the now forty-four-year-old artist Kara Walker’s visual production—sculptures, cutouts, drawings, films—has been diaristic in tone.
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The Panama Papers
Practitioner:
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
Date:
Apr 3 2016
A giant leak of more than 11.5 million financial and legal records exposes a system that enables crime, corruption and wrongdoing, hidden by secretive offshore companies.
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José Bové dismantles a McDonald's
Practitioner:
Andreja Kulunčić, Ahmet Ögüt
Date:
Aug 12 1999
José Bové, a sheep farmer/activist in Aveyron in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France, is a modern day Astérix, a mythical Gaul who drubbed foreign intruders centuries ago. In Bové's case, the intruder was McDonald's, the American fast food chain.
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Subversive Coloring Books
Practitioner:
various
Date:
Jan 1 1961
While adult coloring books are hitting a high note right now in 2016, this isn't the first time this has happened. Back in the 1960s, coloring books were so popular that one of them even made it to the New York Times bestseller list. However, while modern adult coloring books are very geometric and abstract, intended to help adults destress and relax, adult coloring books from the 1960s were much more political.
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P.A.I.N.
Practitioner:
Nan Goldin
Date:
Mar 10 2017
Anti-opioid activists unfurled banners and scattered pill bottles on Saturday inside the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is named for a family connected to the powerful painkilling drug OxyContin. The protest, which was organized by a group started by the celebrated photographer Nan Goldin, started just after 4 p.m., when several dozen people converged at the Temple of Dendur inside the wing.
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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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Occupy the Theatre
Practitioner:
Italian Theatre Association (ETI)
Date:
Jun 14 2011
A changing cast of theater workers — actors, seamstresses, lighting technicians and prop masters — are protesting the privatization of a stage once graced by some of Europe’s greatest thespians, from Sarah Bernhardt to Vittorio Gassman.
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Leaving the Googleplex
Practitioner:
Andrew Norman Wilson
Date:
Jan 1 2009
"Ex Google employee Andrew Norman Wilson’s video Workers Leaving the Googleplex investigates the marginalized class of Google Books’ "ScanOps" workers at their international headquarters in Silicon Valley while simultaneously chronicling the complex events surrounding his own dismissal from the company."
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Dirty Money in Art & Big Pharma
Practitioner:
Nan Goldin & P.A.I.N.
Date:
Jul 20 2018
Between 1995 and 2017 the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin brought in $35 billion USD in revenue for Purdue Pharma, most of which went directly into the hands of the Sackler family.
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ItCouldHappenToAnyone.com
Practitioner:
Agitpop
Date:
Oct 9 2009
The Battle for Healthcare Agitpop joined Dawn Smith and MoveOn.org in taking on Dawn’s insurer to get the care she needs and reform our broken health care system. They traveled from Atlanta to Philidelphia to share her story and bring the voice of thousands of American’s to Cigna’s doorstep.
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Artist Relocates Abandoned Detroit Home
Practitioner:
Ryan Mendoza
Date:
Feb 26 2016
As art projects go, it's pretty audacious.
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Fake lives matter!
Practitioner:
Stu Tanquist
Date:
Sep 26 2017
The kidnapping and enslavement of African people was the life-blood of transnational corporations like the "Royal African Company." In law, these human resource corporations were called "artificial people." Their human cargo was called "cargo."
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Michael Moore demands nationwide boycott of Walgreens for not selling abortion pill: 'Bigotry and misogyny'
Practitioner:
Michael Moore
Date:
Mar 6 2023
Filmmaker Michael Moore has called for a nationwide boycott of Walgreens after the pharmacy chain announced it would not sell abortion pills in 20 states. n February, 20 Republican state attorneys general wrote to Walgreens Corp. threatening legal action if Walgreens provides the abortion pill, mifepristone, to consumers in their pharmacies across the U.S.
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Brandalism
Practitioner:
Brandalism
Date:
Nov 27 2015
Brandalism, an organization out of the UK that aims to reclaim public spaces from advertisers, used Black Friday to protest "partner" brands to the COP21 Climate Conference. Anonymous artists contributed subvertisements that criticized these brand for their hypocrisy in saying they are advocates for the environment when more often than not they are the worst contributors to the problem.
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Protests continue against Netanyahu's government legal reform plans in Israel
Practitioner:
Israeli Demonstrators
Date:
Feb 5 2023
TEL AVIV Thousands of people took to the streets in Israeli cities Saturday for a fifth straight week to protest the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concerning proposed judicial reforms. Demonstrators from non-governmental organizations, lawyers, and technology sectors staged the protests/ Police closed roads leading to squares in Tel Aviv during the day and took security measures in the surrounding area.
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A Night Of Philosophy And Ideas
Practitioner:
various
Date:
Jan 27 2018
"A Night of Philosophy and Ideas is a thinker’s lollapalooza. The free, 12-hour weekend lyceum at the Brooklyn Public Library includes spirited debate, live music, theater, performance art pieces, and film screenings. At any given hour, five or six different events will be taking place simultaneously. Visitors are encouraged to come and go as the spirit moves them.
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Capitalism Works For Me! True/False
Practitioner:
Steve Lambert
Date:
Jul 1 2012
A 20ft by 9ft scoreboard that reads "Capitalism Works For Me!" and allows visitors to vote on whether Capitalism works in their lives by pressing a button for True or False.
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Public Option Annie
Practitioner:
Agit-Pop
Date:
Oct 23 2009
The Guerilla Musical heard round the world
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Khalil Bandib: Cartoons that Speak Truth to Power
Practitioner:
Khalil Bandib
Date:
Jan 1 2007
Khalil Bandib is a Berkeley-based, award-winning editorial cartoonist with a unique perspective. He critiques a myriad of topics, from racism and homophobia to foreign policy and the Patriot Act. Bandib was born in North Africa under a French colonist regime; he brings a non-Eurocentric perspective not typically visible in large corporate media.
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‘They’ve taken away my freedom’: the truth about the UK state’s crackdown on ​protesters
Practitioner:
Natasha Walter
Date:
Feb 5 2023
Melissa is a down-to-earth, friendly woman in her 50s, and it seems that she has always met life with a certain amount of courage. She grew up on another continent, and after early motherhood, then divorce and a first career in business, she moved to the UK with her second husband. She then built another career working with survivors of domestic violence, before setting up a climate emergency centre in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
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Google Bus
Practitioner:
Gmuni dancers
Date:
Apr 1 2014
A group of protesters calling themselves the "Gmuni dancers" block a Google Bus from moving on 24th Street at Valencia Street on Tuesday April 1, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif.
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Ghillie Suits Occupy UBS
Practitioner:
Seda Erdural
Date:
Feb 22 2012
The Yes Lab collaborated with "Knobotiq" to design an action against UBS, a financial services giant renowned for aiding tax evaders, funding environmental destruction, and getting bailed out by the public.
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