In the wake of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Black Lives Matter supporters are finding creative ways to make sure the movement is acknowledged everywhere.
When ordering at Starbucks, people have changed their name to “Black Lives Matter” so that, when their order is up, the baristas have to yell out their new moniker.
Can’t say she didn’t warn us: As per her Instagram message last week, Cowboy Carter, the Act II sequel to 2022’s Renaissance, is a Beyoncé album, not a country album.
As Black History Month commemorations start to wind down, one festival is just gearing up. Afropunk the Takeover — Harlem, running from Tuesday through Feb. 25, will celebrate black culture with music, art, film screenings, discussions and comedy.
Over the winter break, I was actually able to see the recently re-decorated Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia. After the height of the Black Lives Matter Protests over the past summer, it couldn’t be torn down, but it was fully wrapped with protest art. All phrases and slogans (such as Black Trans Lives Matter, ACAB, Etc.) were in full display over the statue of the infamous Confederate General.
Last August, as protesters marched in Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old unarmed teen shot by a police officer, another group of activists began thinking about how to incorporate the creative community into the movement. The result is Manifest:Justice, a free pop-up art show taking place in Los Angeles.
There are over 200,000 migrant domestic workers living in Lebanon
today — a large number when you considered that Lebanon’s population is
only a little over 4 million. Most migrant workers live with their
Lebanese employers, cleaning their houses, washing their clothes,
cooking their food and looking after their children. Yet these workers
are not included under Lebanon’s labor laws — they are not entitled to
In 2011, a video displaying fashion designer and former lead designer at Dior, John Galliano, shouting anti-Semitic remarks, went viral on the internet, leading to his subsequent dismissal from Dior and the subsequent defamation of his career. Nonetheless, Parsons at the New School extended Galliano an offer to teach a specialized design seminar, which was scheduled to begin this year.
Eight years after his death, the annual August Wilson Monologue Competition provides high school students from around the country an opportunity to carry on the African-American playwright’s legacy. That legacy includes Pulitzer Prizes for “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson,” two installments of Wilson’s 10-play series set in his hometown of Pittsburgh that examined 20th-century black life through the personal and political struggles of everyday people.
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.
Racist adverts promoting hatred against Muslims are currently being run on buses in San Francisco - but someone has started covering them up with anti-hatred messages from Marvel's première Muslim superhero, Ms. Marvel.
During the Black Lives Matter protests in Richmond, VA, the two fourteen-year-olds posed in a powerful photo in front of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s statue. Ava had originally arranged an appointment with photographer Marcus Ingram, but as she and Kennedy posed in front of the graffiti-covered monument with their fists firmly jutted in the air, several photographers began snapping pictures.
A new, three-minute ad by Coca-Cola, "Small World Machines," starts with a relatively straightforward premise: India and Pakistan do not get along so well. It ends with the promise of peace: "Togetherness, humanity, this is what we all want, more and more exchange," a woman, either Indian or Pakistani, narrates as the music swells. Sounds great. How do we get there? By buying Coke, of course.
Play Safe is a documentary film series created and directed by NYU alum Eddie Einbinder. The film, much of which now appears for free on YouTube, was originally released in 2013 after being filmed between 2011 and 2012. It debuted at the International Harm Reduction conference in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2013.
Indigenous designers often use fashion to celebrate their culture and raise awareness around key issues affecting their community. Now, the spirit has come to the modeling world. Haatepah Clearbear is a full-time model, based in Los Angeles, who is using his platform to uplift his people. The 22-year-old’s personal Instagram page serves as a hub for his activism work, where he highlights everything from climate change to indigenous rights.
“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.
ODBK is an activist organization that aims to create a more equal, diverse, inclusive, transparent and democratic art world. ODBK seeks to do this by diversify and increase the number of people who understand and engage with contemporary art.
Kwame Brathwaite, the photographer and activist whose work gave a visual identity to the “Black is Beautiful” movement, died on April 1. He was 85.
The news was shared by his son, Kwame Brathwaite, Jr., in an Instagram post. “I am deeply saddened to share that my Baba, the patriarch of our family, our rock and my hero has transitioned,” Brathwaite, Jr. wrote. “Thank you for your love and support during this difficult time.”
After winning the TED Prize on March 2, 2011, the French-artist JR launched the Inside Out Project, in his first TED Talk. Using his own artistic practice as inspiration, this participatory platform helps individuals and communities to make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces. Through their “Actions,” communities around the world have sparked collaborations and conversations.
hat’s it like to be black at Harvard? Students at the Ivy League university are offering a picture of their experiences there with a play and a photo campaign called “I, Too, Am Harvard,” a nod to the famous Langston Hughes poem.
Legendary activist and artist Ed Bereal will be able to have his work displayed again in the newly reopened Portland Art Museum. He is a complex figure, gaining fame in LA in the 1960s for his abstract works and radical performances. His work also includes critiquing politicians in a satirical way.
In 2015, Walter Scott fled for his life, stalked by a policeman who then cold bloodedly shot him in the back. We all saw the video and in response to this murder I made the artwork, “A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday.” This simple banner, printed with the eponymous words, is an update of an iconic flag that the NAACP flew from their national headquarters window in New York in the nineteen-twenties and thirties the day after someone was lynched.
The American rapper’s performance of 'Stand Up for Something' with singer Andra Day has gone down as one of the highlights of this year’s Academy Awards.
Common used his Oscars performance to condemn Donald Trump’s “hate” and the National Rifle Association.
The American rapper’s performance of “Stand Up for Something” with singer Andra Day has been held up by many as one of the highlights of this year’s Academy Awards.