Projects tagged "Politics & Government"

Journey of a Yellow Man
Practitioner:
Lee Wen
Date:
Sep 1 1992
Singaporean artist Lee Wen’s series Journey of a Yellow Man (1992–2012), one of his most famous and long-standing performances, was not simply a personal affront, it was a political affront. At the intersection of Asian art history, critical race theory, and migration and diasporic studies, one is never far (enough away) from the chromatic framing of race and ethnicity: yellow race, yellow peril, yellow face, the forever foreigner.
Teeter-Totter Wall
Practitioner:
architecture studio Rael San Fratello
Date:
Jul 1 2019
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.
Bloodline: Big Family
Practitioner:
Zhang Xiaogang
Date:
Dec 1 2002
The immediate prototypes of Zhang Xiaogang’s Big Family series are formal group photographic portraits from the 1950’s and 60’s, including those of Zhang’s own family, a source of the painter’s “endless reveries.” From these old black-and-white pictures Zhang Xiaogang derived the series’ paradigmatic features: a subdued, nearly monochromatic palette; a thickly layered but flat surface, without overt evidence of brushwork; a general compositional restric
Inflatable Cobblestones
Practitioner:
Tools for Action, Eclectic Electric Collective, Los Reflectantes
Date:
May 1 2012
On the 25th revolutionary 1st of May demonstration in Berlin-Kreuzberg, protesters were throwing huge inflatable cobblestones, made of silver-reflective foil and tape. The creative intervention was initiated by the former art-activist collective “eclectic electric collective” (e.e.c.) and was meant as a celebration of an object which is both a symbol and a material weapon of anti-authoritarian struggle everywhere.
Climate-Noah's Ark
Practitioner:
Gad Weil
Date:
Sep 19 2015
On September 19,2015 in Paris, 140 animals sailed up the River Seine to bring awareness to climate change, ahead of the COP21 UN meeting in December. French artist Gad Weil created this pop art piece from fully recyclable acrylic sheets, and installed the animals on top of a barge in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Theresa May gets fired during speech
Practitioner:
Simon Brodkin
Date:
Oct 3 2017
At Theresa May's speech to the Conservative Party conference, comedian Simon Brodkin crept up to the stage and handed the Prime Minister a P45 form (the form that bosses in the UK use to formally fire their employees), telling her "Boris told me to do it."
The Pianists of Ukraine
Practitioner:
Artists
Date:
Feb 10 2014
In Kiev, clashes between protestors and police have persisted since December. Blood has been shed, and the political stability of Ukraine remains uncertain. During late January and early February, the opposition began to play music (from pianos) in front of riot police. These artists modus operandi has been to serenade protestors and police toward peaceful consensuses.
Black Lives Matter meets Animal Crossing: how protesters take their activism into video games
Practitioner:
Adelle
Date:
Aug 7 2020
s street protests against anti-black racism erupted across the globe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons players were taking their own stand. Adelle, a software engineer from New York, decided to create a memorial on her in-game island, decorated with flowers and pixel art portraits of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black victims of police brutality.
Justice Kavanaugh Boof Kits
Practitioner:
Von Wendys
Date:
Nov 3 2018
Throughout the weekend, big box stores across the country were stocked with an unexpected item: “The Justice Kavanaugh Boof Kit.” The item, an alcohol enema kit (known as “boofing” or “butt chugging”), appeared on dozens of retailer’s shelves over the weekend in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Detroit. Some of the stores included Walmart, Target, Bevmo and other major super market chains.
Shamecards
Practitioner:
Manuel and Patricia Oliver
Date:
Feb 14 2021
Mimicking the look of iconic "Greetings From" postcards, Manuel and Patricia Oliver, parents of Joaquin Oliver who died in the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, created "Shamecards" featuring 52 cities from around the United States.
Beirut Graffiti Artist Uses His Murals to Unite A Fragmented City
Practitioner:
Yazan Halwani
Date:
Jan 1 2011
Yazan Halwani is a young Beiruti artist who paints murals of revered Lebanese and Arab figures on prominent walls in a bid to help overcome sectarianism in this fragmented city. “What I try to do,” he explains down a fuzzy line from Beirut, “is write the stories of the city, on its own walls – creating a memory for the city.”
Web sites go dark in SOPA protest against plans to ban online piracy
Practitioner:
Wikimedia, Google, Reddit, Craigslist, etc
Date:
Jan 18 2013
By Hayley Tsukayama, Published: January 18, 2012 Web users woke up this morning to find that, as promised, several prominent Web sites had gone dark or put up messages asking visitors to contact their members of Congress to vote against two online piracy measures: the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.
Otpor Barrel Action
Practitioner:
Otpor
Date:
May 1 2000
The Milosevic regime ruled over Serbia and Yugoslavia for about 13 years. To maintain control, the Milosevic regime was infamous for arbitrary arrests, beatings, imprisonment and even murder of avid opponents.
Santiago Sierra will soak British flag in blood of colonised peoples
Practitioner:
Santiago Sierra
Date:
Mar 19 2021
The Spanish artist Santiago Sierra is planning to immerse a British flag in blood donated by indigenous peoples from countries colonised by the British Empire. The resulting artwork, titled Union Flag, is intended to be an “acknowledgement of the pain and destruction colonialism has caused First Nations peoples, devastating entire cultures and civilisations,” the artist said in a statement.
Subway Therapy
Practitioner:
Matthew Chavez
Date:
Oct 8 2016
Matthew “Levee” Chavez sits at a table in New York City’s Union Square, sporting a thrift store suit and tie, holding a sign that reads “Subway Therapy.” This act of social practice, which started as an invitation for conversation, went viral after he set up shop at the subway the day after the 2016 presidential election. He wrote “Express Yourself” on a Post-It and stuck it to the tiled wall.
Transborder Immigrant Tool
Practitioner:
The Electronic Disturbance Theater
Date:
Jan 1 2009
The Transborder Immigrant Tool is a ECD 2.0 (Ricardo Dominguez, Brett Stalbaum, Amy Sara Carroll, Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand) project designed to repurpose inexpensive used mobile phones that have GPS antennas (through the addition of proper software which the TB project is designing) to provide emergency personal navigation, helping to guide dehydrated immigrants to water safety sites established by activists and to provide poetic audio nourishment
Three billboards in Florida target Rubio on guns
Practitioner:
n/a
Date:
Feb 18 2018
An online activist group is mimicking the critically acclaimed film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to troll Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., with three rolling billboards in Florida calling for gun control.
Ben & Jerry give political art contraption to AVAM
Practitioner:
Ben & Jerry
Date:
Apr 19 2016
Susan Speirs fed four dollars into the Amend-o-matic Stamp Mobile. After spiraling up the "Tower of Corrupted Power," gliding past a clanging gong and sliding down hairpin turns on a roller coaster-style track to a final stamping station, the bills came out with bright red lettering in all caps. Now, they read, "Stamp money out of politics."
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Practitioner:
United States Continental Army
Date:
Jul 4 1776
The Fourth of July is upon us, so it’s time once again to sing what is arguably our most baffling national ditty, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Maybe you’ve noticed: Some of the lyrics seem like the work of a prankster on acid. Who else could have conceived a vignette as bizarre as a man riding a pony into town, then sticking a feather in his cap that, for unknown reasons, he insists on calling “macaroni”?
The Gate
Practitioner:
Igor Toshevski
Date:
Jan 1 2016
A site specific intervention аs part of the group exhibition Sculptural, organized and partly financed by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje. The text INVEST IN FUTURISM is a quotation of a gaffe uttered by the Macedonian PM on public TV stating his plans to incorporate contemporary art in their right wing populist programme and the infamous project Skopje 2014.
Veterans Peace Team, face to face with police on May Day
Practitioner:
Veterans Peace Team
Date:
May 5 2012
Unlike some of Occupy Wall Street’s iconic actions in recent months, May Day did not include a scene of mass arrest. Several dozen arrests were scattered throughout the day and night during various marches and actions. But, as never before in the movement’s short history, arrests
Sex Strike
Practitioner:
Iroquois Women
Date:
Jan 1 1650
During the 1600’s the Iroquois Indian Nations, a group of several indigenous tribes in North America, engaged in warfare with many other tribes. The men controlled when and against whom they declared a war. Tribal Iroquois women decided that they wanted to stop unregulated warfare, and thought of a way to convince the Iroquois men to give them more power in deciding issues of war and peace.
Ghana Wins Election 2016
Practitioner:
Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Rebecca Ekpe etc.
Date:
Dec 1 2016
An exercise that used drama/and audio visuals to engage with with all election partners, especially the political parties especially the political parties and their candidates/leaders, Electoral Commission, Musicians Association of Ghana, etc to push for a free, fair and peaceful Presidential and Parliamentary election and hand over of power to who ever won the elections peacefully.
Step Into My Shoes And Sit In My Seat
Practitioner:
Participants of the Creativity and Change course Cork City
Date:
Mar 11 2017
Topic: Displaced people Concept: Explore and communicate some of the issues around displacement in a global, European and Irish context. Date of action: 11th March 2.30 to 4.20 pm Place: Emmett Place, Cork City, Ireland
Scheiß AfD Jodler (Shit AfD Yodellers)
Practitioner:
Corner Chor
Date:
Jul 21 2025
"A live interview with the leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland was interrupted by protesters. During the live television interview with ARD, Alice Weidel, co-leader of AfD, appeared at times to struggle to hear the questions being asked of her as protesters gathered below the provisional stage for the interview in Berlin.

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