In 2003 Amsterdam police headquarters decided their security cameras needed a little bling after Jill Magid approached them through her company System Azure Security Ornamentation. Originally turned down as an artist proposal, Magid founded her company as a possible means of executing her project. It worked. Not only did she receive the proper permits to beautify police security cameras, but the city paid her to do it.
A satirical TV comedy show caused a security alert after coming within yards of George Bush's hotel at a top-level government conference in Australia.
The Chaser's War on Everything, which airs on the ABC network, sent a team to the Apec summit in Sydney with spoof security passes saying "joke", "insecurity" and "It's pretty obvious this isn't a real pass".
It’s been a historic year for women. There are more serving in Congress than ever before, and a record number are currently running for president in 2020. But even with these significant gains, women—both in the U.S. and around the world—can still find gender equality elusive.
On January 18, 2012, numerous website across the internet called for an internet blackout in protest of SOPA and PIPA. SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect IP Act, were a series of bills promoted by Hollywood in the US Congress that would have created a “blacklist” of censored websites.
A town in northwestern Syria has become the creative center of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. Since the beginning of the uprising, the residents of Kafr Anbel have drawn signs that skewer the Assad regime and express outrage that the world has not done more to stop the killing in Syria.
Climate activists defaced a work of art near Germany's Parliament Saturday in the latest act of vandalism by protestors concerned with environmental policy.
Members of The Last Generation threw black liquid over a series of glass plates displaying 19 articles of the German constitution. The protestors then affixed posters to the facade that read, "Oil or fundamental rights?" in German.
The Protest Banner Lending Library is a space for people to gain skills to learn to make their own banners, a communal sewing space where we support each other’s voices, and a place where people can check out handmade banners to use in protests.
A is for Activism is a children's book developed by Innosanto Nagara, an author illustrator and founding member of the Design Action Collective, a worker owned cooperative design studio in Oakland that is dedicated to “serving the Movement.” The book includes playful rhymes for each letter stressing the importance of civic engagement and a participatory democracy.
Students at art colleges across China are taking a strong stance in the midst of the largest wave of protests to have gripped the country since 1989. As demonstrations against the government’s strict Covid-19 policies erupted across the country over the weekend, students rallied on campuses to create protest art and graffiti.
In 2008, an earthquake devastated Sichuan province in China, claiming the lives of more than 69,000 people. Following accusations from parents that substandard construction caused the collapse of schools across in the region, the artist Ai Weiwei set upon a political investigation that would name every missing student and call the government to account for their deaths.
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.
The structure teeters over fields of knee-high grass, looking like a cross between a camping tent and a giant wedding cake. Eleven stories of dark red wooden rooms, diminishing in size as they ascend, balance atop one another, seemingly held together by only the thicket of cords that stretches from the peak to the ground.
HEFEI, China (AP) — Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people gathered Thursday near a state funeral home in Beijing as China’s former second-ranking leader, Li Keqiang, was put to rest, while a steady stream of mourners showed their respects at the ex-premier’s childhood home in central China.
Li, who was China’s top economic official for a decade, died last Friday of a heart attack at age 68.
Blizzard Entertainnment an American gaming company that has created some of the world's most beloved games has permantly banned Blitzchung, a professional Hearthstone player from Hong Kong who shouted after a livestreamed game, "Liberate Hong Kong! The revolution of our age!" After the professional player shouted that out, Blizzard banned the pro gamer from playing Hearthstone for a year and reclaimed his prize money from the tournament.
JAMES GUBB was finishing off the knuckles when the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) shut him down. Trading single shares between two accounts, Mr Gubb had managed to “draw” the image of a fist with an upright middle finger onto the share-price chart for Oakbay Resources and Energy Limited, a company controlled by the Gupta brothers, cronies of President Jacob Zuma, that is at the centre of allegations of “state capture” in South Africa.
The ZAD (zone à défendre, or “zone to defend”) in Western France is 4000 acres of wetland, farmland and forest that was originally intended to be built into an airport in 1965 but is now an autonomous territory occupied by 40 different collectives looking to reclaim the land. There are around 200 people living permanently on the zone, in addition to some 2,000 people coming and going.
Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale write: Five Chinese feminists have been arrested for planning to protest against sexual harassment. They face five to ten years in jail. This post explains the background to the case, and suggests ways that other activists around the world can show solidarity.
The wreckage of the Syrian city of Homs became the bittersweet backdrop for a young couple’s wedding pictures.
Nada Merhi, 18, wore a traditional white gown when she married camouflage-clad Hassan Youssef, 27, on Friday. Youssef is a soldier in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army, which took Homs from rebels in November.
Pussy Riot are spreading their protests and activism beyond Russia. Away from Vladimir Putin’s censorship, they’re bringing their voices to Canada – a place where their message of resistance is resonating. On Nov. 1, as a chilling cold filled the streets of Montreal, Pussy Riot kicked off the North American leg of their Riot Days tour with a sold out show at the Rialto Theatre. The tension in the room was palpable.
The Story of Stuff Project launches a new video. What is instructional, educational, and inspirational is a call for all the people in America to exercise their citizenship rather than their right to consume.
Here is what Annie Leonard (co-founder and spokes person for the project) has to say about this new film:
It seems a lot of powerful people hate Benetton's new 'Unhate' Campaign ads. The recently unveiled images show world leaders like the Pope and U.S. President Barack Obama kissing their perceived enemies.
On Thursday, the White House issued a statement condemning Benetton for its provocative campaign.
In Seoul, thousands of protestors who represent organized labor marched in Seoul on Saturday denouncing the governments attempt to force thousands of striking truckers back to work after they all walked out over a dispute in the price of freight.
This is the sixth piece of the series Tatlin’s Whisper which examines the relationship between apathy and anaesthetization of the images in the mass media. This series intends to activate images, well-known because of having been repeatedly seen in the press, but are here decontextualized from the original event that gave way to the news and staged as realistically as possible in an art institution.
On Tuesday morning, when Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his company’s data collection practices, there was a familiar mustachioed face in the crowd. To most people, this person — also wearing a monocle and toting a bag of cash — is none other than the famous board game character most commonly known as Monopoly Man.