Cinema is a popular medium for people to escape the real world. It provides comedy, drama, and endless entertainment. But Kalpna Singh-Chitnis saw an even greater potential for film. She believed that this art form could be utilized as a means to highlight social causes, so she created the Silent River Film Festival.
A new exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts that showcases activism through art and media in the San Francisco Bay Area, gets its name, Take This Hammer, from a 1963 documentary about the author James Baldwin as he went around San Francisco, talking to African-Americans about what it was like for them in the city.
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 Sunday, April 29, dozens of protesters occupied the Beaux-Arts Court at the Brooklyn Museum as they reiterated demands for a decolonization commission, about which the art institution has remained silent. The calls for the commission come after the criticisms that followed the appointment of two white curators to the museum, including in the field of African art.
The streets of Santiago are once again alive with the spirit of revolution. For weeks now, working-class Chileans have occupied national monuments and blocked major intersections in protest of widespread inequality. They desire full reform — a request so long in the making that it is practically tradition. The country’s floundering political elite offer half measures while dispatching riot police and the military.
The Haitian Creole word "konbit" denotes the idea of similar talents joining together to work towards a common goal. The founders — a group of photographers, educators, and artists — came up with the idea for Fotokonbit a few years ago to "empower Haitians to tell their own stories and document their community", but it was the 2010 earthquake that gave the group new urgency.
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 collective Ndaku Ya La Vie Est Belle, a group of Kinshasa street performers turn their bodies into living sculptures, and use them to political ends. Among the artists is Jared, who regularly takes to the streets dressed as Robot Annonce. The costume, made from broken radio parts, is designed to raise awareness of fake news. “People receive so much incorrect information and many inaccuracies are spread. I want to fight this,” says Jared.
You get a flat tire. You fail a test. You lose a job. You lose a relationship. It’s so easy to let the struggles of life consume and affect the way we think and react. Broadly, negativity is something that everyone is faced with on a day to day basis. It comes in many forms, and everyone deals with it differently. It seems as though negativity can make it difficult to acknowledge any positive aspect of any situation.
Students at the NYC iSchool, a high school in Manhattan, worked for 9 weeks to create works of activist art with art teacher Gretel Smith. We were lucky enough to have Stephen Duncomb and Steve Lambert from the Center for Artistic Activism come to our class to teach a lesson inspiring students to think like activists; they came back later to critique students’ works-in-progress.
BRAVE VOICES POETRY JOURNAL is the scripture of FREEDOM religion, with her twin’s doctrine of justice and resilience. It comprises two Testaments. (1) the old testament of precolonial Africa; from Genesis of civilization through Exodus to slavery. From kings; Mansa,Tshaka , Selassie…through Psalms; Senghor, Diops,Okara,Brutus.
he recent movie “The Monuments Men” told the story of U.S. soldiers who were charged with recovering and protecting works of art stolen by the Nazis in World War II. A new documentary, “The Liberators,” is the story of a U.S. soldier who stole priceless art from a site in Germany and kept it with him in Texas until he died 35 years later.
You’ll find Johanna Toruno on the streets of NYC plastering pictures of her flower-filtered poetry, Kendrick Lamar, and Selena on blank walls, street lights and buildings. When I came across The Unapologetically Brown Series on Instagram I was intrigued not only by the name but by the concept of being unapologetic and brown as the premise for a body of street art.
DIWO (Do It With Others) is a distributed campaign for emancipatory, networked art practices instigated by arts and activist network Furtherfield in 2006.
"Under the Same Sky" bearing the name and the first part of my project completed. I collected the letters written to 40 Armenian young people from 40 random Turkish young people. The mutual translations of all letters and video subtitles were made. Letters and photographs are handed out to young people, friendships are being established.
One of the most pressing questions before us in the United States now is how to resolve the tension between our personal visions and needs, on the one hand, and the demands of being a member of a community, on the other.
Open Call for Artist:
"Hear for All | Activism through Prints" Exhibition
The Art Gallery
Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon
hearforall.wordpress.com
“The Feminist Zine Fest showcases the work of artists and zine makers of all genders who identify on the feminist spectrum, and whose politics are reflected in their work. For the second consecutive year, Barnard proudly hosts the zine fest, welcoming approximately 40 zine-makers eager to share their work.
Non-profit organizations and a multitude of Guatemalan girls protested together demanding justice and security from the government. Guatemala's insecurity and cases of girls' disappearances have increased over the years. The protest started outside the Government Ministery (Ministerio de Gobernación) early in the morning, where protestors gathered riding their bikes.
Topless queer men light spliffs on the beach. A trans man injects testosterone on the toilet. Drag queens nonchalantly scroll through their phones and smoke. These are just some of the images that make up the new book from Leo Adef. Titled WARP, it’s comprised of photographs captured across four years spent in Barcelona's queer underworld
Khushboo Kataria Gulati lights an off-white candle and passes the flame to a switch of sage, casting a spell around the purple-lit room as she places paintbrush to canvas. The herbaceous smoke billows around her, time suspends and her paint strokes create a scene of three multicolored faces surrounded by plants.
When Patricia Stonefish returned home to the United States from Egypt in 2014, she brought with her a new outlook for conceptualizing women's self defense. Having seen firsthand the benefits and empowerment of Taekwando/ Hapkido/ Gumdo classes for Egyptian women during and after the revolution in 2011, she decided to put her decade of martial arts training to good use on home turf.
"a dinner cooked by six indigenous chefs, members of tribes from around North America, who are meeting together for the first time this week to launch a new indigenous activist group, called the I-Collective. Thursday’s dinner will be at Dimes, on Canal Street, and it will follow a dinner tonight for New York City’s local Native American community at the American Indian Community House, on Eldridge Street.
Local artist fnnch wants San Francisco to decriminalize certain types of art.
You’re not seeing things: A whopping 450 “honey bears”—variations on the immediately recognizable and widely imitated bear-shaped honey bottles sold in seemingly every store in America--appeared all over SoMa late Sunday night, from the Embarcadero to Fifth Street.