Close to 100 artists and activists staged a protest at the Brooklyn Museum yesterday afternoon in response to displacement — both in Brooklyn and Palestine.
Sublevarte, a Collective of Mexican artists, was born out of the ENAP (National School of Fine Arts) of UNAM (the National Autonomous University of Mexico), during the student strike of 1999-2000, the longest student strike in history.
Surrounded by a jungle of tents and mud, the Good Chance Theatre was set up last year by British playwrights Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson. The refugee camp theatre has been derided by many, but for the thousands of migrants who have journeyed across the world to Calais, the small dome has been the first and only place into which they have been welcomed, and their voice valued.
“In these apocalyptic Islamophobic times, laughing in the face of the resistance can sometimes be the best medicine.” That may sound like the trailer to a good-bad movie, but that’s how Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed describes her awesome Muslim Valentine’s Day cards.
The play celebrates the life and legacy of the Mexican-American labor activist César Chávez. His early life as well as his partnership with Dolores Huerta, activism with the National Farm Workers Association, the 1968 grape boycott, and his ongoing commitment to nonviolent civil rights work.
The exhibition "Unpacking the 21st Century: Artists Engaging the World" included work by five New York City area artists that examined a range of social and political issues and offered companion special events.
"One morning, when JR awoke, an image lingered from his dreams: The wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and above it a young kid peering curiously over. A child just 1 year old, who has "no idea that's a wall that divides people — he has no idea of the political context," JR imagined.
An installation by architecture studio Rael San Fratello, which connected children in the US and Mexico via a trio of seesaws slotted into the countries' border wall, has been crowned the Design of the Year.
Dubbed the Teeter-Totter Wall, the project was in place for only around 40 minutes in July of 2019 and hoped to foster a sense of unity at the divisive border, which was highly politicised under the Trump administration.
April 19th, 2020
Taylor, TX – On April 19th at 4 pm, around 70 human rights defenders in cars circled the T. Don Hutto Residential Center operated by CoreCivic in Taylor, honking and displaying signs urging ICE and local officials to release people from cages before COVID-19 turns prisons into death camps. This comes after news of the first detained immigrants in Texas testing positive for the novel coronavirus on Monday.
The Amplification Project: Digital Archive for Forced Migration, Contemporary Art, and Action (https://theamplificationproject.com) is a community-led participatory public digital archive to which any artist and activist can document, preserve and share their work inspired, influenced, or affected by forced migration.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948) was drafted in an effort to advance human rights on a global level. Article 26 (2) of the UDHR (1949) states that education is intended to develop humanity and increase the respect for human rights, as well as to promote tolerance among nations and maintenance of peace. Yet, the UDHR does not appear to be promoted or recognized.
The video for “Borders,” a song off MIA's album Matahdatah, features images recalling all sorts of migrations from the developing world—there are people crossing deserts, fences, and bodies of water. Though much of M.I.A.’s work has been about women and children, this video is filled with brown men: the ultimate bogeyman for many in the West, stereotyped as terrorists, criminals, and job-takers.
When Europeans of the 18th and 19th centuries established their grandest museums, each building meant to unite the world’s cultural heritage under a single roof, they had no doubt as to who should explain it all: themselves. They took a Eurocentric view, categorizing the spoils of colonial enterprise by nation and region, splitting art from craft, and nature from culture.
In this article, author Caroline Choi highlights different grafiti artists and their stories. These artists use their talent to tell their stories, ones that might not get to be told otherwise. She goes into the history of grafiti, and how it ties into how rich and white the art world has become.
"ALBUQUERQUE — For a brief moment — just a half-hour over the weekend — a simple piece of playground equipment served as a bridge between the United States and Mexico."
“Actions that take place on one side have a direct consequence on the other side,” Ronald Rael
The beacon flashed incessantly. On. Off. On again.
Like some sort of traffic light gone crazy, it pierced the thick nighttime mist hovering over San Francisco Bay. The light sent a message five miles across the dark waters from Ghirardelli Square to Alcatraz Island. There, cheers erupted as the light flashed the words, "Go Indians!"
On March 21, just days after eight people, including six women of Asian descent, were killed in the Atlanta-area shootings, thousands gathered at Columbus Park in Manhattan for a rally against anti-Asian violence. Activists took turns addressing the surge in hate crimes and hate incidents toward the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, when an 8-year-old stepped onto the stage. “Stop the hatred!” Chance yelled into the mic.
The Stanford Daily:
There is no word short of “spectacular” that better describes the experience of examining “Pan American Unity,” Diego Rivera’s 1940 mural, housed since 2021 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The piece is the crux of SFMOMA’s soon-closing exhibition, “Diego Rivera’s America,” curated by James Oles and Maria Castro.
Festival “WakEUp!” (organized by “Heartefact”) happened at several locations, and included film and exhibition program. Festival originated from the need for a reaction to the present moment refugee crisis and the situation in the world, began on the 7 th of December at Gallery “G12 Hub” in Belgrade with two days performance that was dedicated to the current problem of refugees and their historical destinies.
Zhuang Huan invited more than 40 men - laborers, fishermen, construction workers––who had recently migrated to Beijing from other areas of China to participate. Zhang Huan said, “In order to find these workers, I visited many of the shacks where they live.”
In El Paso more than 100 murals have been painted since the mid-1960s. The murals, located throughout the city's various corridors, often depict themes common to Chicano muralism, such as mestizo heritage or social problems, but they also tell unique stories about the "merging of ideas, cultures, and dreams" along the United States-Mexico border.
GAME ON! Its gonna be a good Spring!" Connie Bacon.
Activists and the politically aware will march with the message that Donald Trump and his beliefs are "UNWANTED".
The story of an artist. Laolu Senbanjo grew up surrounded by the culture and mythology of the Yoruba, an ethnic group from the southwest of Nigeria, but he never imagined how it would influence the artist he is today. After a career as a human rights attorney, Senbanjo moved to New York City to pursue art full time. “With my art, I like to tell stories, I like to start a conversation,” says Senbanjo, but life as an artist in New York was tough.
Alejandro Ghersi, the Venezuelan-born artist behind Arca, is part of a relatively recent and growing diaspora, and at a time when the political situation back home is at a fever pitch, it feels difficult not to see the ways this album relates to the anguish of that experience.