Projects tagged "Violence & War"

Turning a New Page: Ukrainians in Moldova Celebrate Culture, Create Community
Practitioner:
Moldova’s Media and Communications Unit, Riccardo Severi, Ana Gnip-Balan, and Olga Derejovschi and edited by Amber Christino
Date:
Apr 9 2025
Republic of Moldova – “Before the war, Eva was a happy, carefree little girl, a first-grader full of joy who loved going to school, practicing taekwondo and drawing,” Olga recalls. Determined for her six-year-old daughter to have a joyful, stable childhood, Olga did all she could to help Eva thrive.
Clothesline Project
Practitioner:
Tennessee Correctional Services, Lane College Wellness Program
Date:
Apr 23 2014
“Stop hitting me,” “Please help,” and “Abuse is wrong” were just a few phrases painted and scribbled onto T-shirts by victims of sexual and domestic abuse to express how it felt to go through that pain. The shirts are part of the Clothesline Project and were on display at Lane College on Wednesday.
Elena Fortún (1886-1952): Celia y la Revolución – Celia and the Revolution
Practitioner:
Elena Fortun
Date:
Jul 18 1936
Encarnación Aragoneses Urquijo (886-1952), commonly known by her literary pseudonym Elena Fortún, was a Spanish writer who focused in children and teenagers literature. She was born in Madrid, where she studied Philosophy and Humanities. In 1908 she married Eusebio de Gorbea y Lemmi, a member of the republican army. They left the country after the Civil War to live frist in France and then in Argentina.
Ai Weiwei poses as drowned Syrian infant refugee in 'haunting' photo
Practitioner:
Ai Wei Wei
Date:
Feb 1 2016
Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has recreated the image of drowned infant Alan Kurdi that in 2015 became the defining symbol of the plight of Syria’s refugees. For the recreation, Ai lay on a pebbled beach on the Greek island of Lesbos. His pose was similar to that of Kurdi’s lifeless body, which washed up on a beach near the Turkish town of Bodrum and was captured in a September 2015 photo.
Healing Torture Through Art
Practitioner:
Najah al-Bukai
Date:
Feb 1 2018
Najah al-Bukai cannot forget. As an accomplished artist in Syria before the war, Mr. Bukai had long thought his photographic memory was his greatest asset, allowing him to recreate scenes on his sketch pads and canvases days, months and even years after he witnessed them. But now, after he has survived two stretches in the Syrian government’s notorious detention centers, his sharp memories only serve to haunt him.
Spec Ops: The Line
Practitioner:
Walt Williams; Richard Pearsey
Date:
Jun 26 2012
Often in military style video games we kill without much regard for the enemy. They are faceless or stereotypical, the Nazi or evil Cold War–era Russian. They are enemies that were fought on the battlefields of great wars, or they are aliens that have no resemblance to humans save for a general humanoid form.
Missing Faces for Missing Girls
Practitioner:
Peju Alatise
Date:
Jul 1 2014
Born in Nigeria in 1975, Péju Alatise, is a multimedia artist focusing on the experience of women and girls, particularly in her native country but with resonance across the world.
Those Without Names
Practitioner:
Carlo Gabuco
Date:
Mar 1 2018
In an art fair in Manila in March last year, one installation caught everybody’s eye.
Labs Creates Sustainable Music Studios in Unlikely Places
Practitioner:
Beat Making Lab
Date:
Mar 13 2013
It started as an experiment: what happens when you equip a vibrant youth community with the resources to express themselves through hip hop and electronic music? Last summer I traveled to Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo to find out and the results were more beautiful than I could have imagined.
Lysistrata
Practitioner:
Aristophanes
Date:
Nov 30 0410
Lysistrata, by Aristophanes, was first performed in Athens in 411 BC. The play, while fictional, can be read as an early example of creative activism. It is about Lysistrata's quest to end the war between Athens and Sparta. She gathers the women of Athens and makes them swear an oath to deny their lovers and husband sex until they end the war.
Something Terrible
Practitioner:
Dean Trippe
Date:
Sep 24 2013
Something Terrible is the story of Trippe’s childhood sexual abuse and painful struggle with its psychological aftermath. Though the comic itself is sparsely scripted and free of gory details, Trippe provides an afterword that relates the hard facts: he was raped as a child by a teenager, and for three days. The older boy, who took advantage of the trust of someone much too young, threatened Trippe’s family and used a gun as persuasion.
Walk in Their Shoes
Practitioner:
CODEPINK
Date:
Jul 24 2008
"Hundreds of children's shoes create stunning memorial of Iraqi children dead through war.
Mesmerizing Flesh: The Visceral Corporeality of Tamara Kostianovsky's Textile Sculptures
Practitioner:
Tamara Kostianovsky
Date:
Feb 3 2023
For artists exploring themes of violence towards humans and animals, there is a fine line between thoughtfully engaging and needlessly shocking the viewer; being sensationally explicit can turn people away while being tacit or innocuous may fail to make an impact.
Outrage in China over pressure on student to stop activism amid growing Me Too movement
Practitioner:
Yue Xin
Date:
Apr 26 2018
BEIJING – Before Yue Xin became a central figure in China’s burgeoning movement against sexual harassment, she recorded herself singing a revamped version of the 1960s pop classic “Que Sera Sera.” “Will we be equal? Will we be free?” sang the Peking University senior in a voice clip posted online, putting her own spin on Doris Day’s “Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?”
The State of Things
Practitioner:
Ligorano/Reese
Date:
Jan 1 2006
The State of Things was first performed in the spring of 2006 on the 3rd anniversary of the Iraq war. On September 1st, 2008 in collaboration with Northern Lights as part of the UnConvention, Ligorano/Reese recreated The State of Thing’s Democracy ice sculpture, weighing over 1,000 pounds and measuring 5 feet high and 20 feet wide, in front of the State Capitol Building in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Picha Mtaani
Practitioner:
Boniface Mwangi
Date:
Dec 7 2009
On 7th December 2009, “Picha Mtaani” was launched at a colorful ceremony in Nairobi. “Picha Mtaani” in partnership with UNDP Kenya, was an initiative that seeks to create a platform for peace building, national healing and cohesion through street picture galleries, hosted dialogues and repertoire of the reflections and discussions.
Protest against Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
Practitioner:
Sarah Constantin
Date:
Jan 28 2016
A Femen activist, Sarah Constantin, is hanged from a noose-like rope from a Paris bridge to call attention to the large number of executions in Iran as she stages a protest against visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Paris, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. A near-naked woman hanging from a noose-like rope from a Paris bridge has sent a message to visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Wearable Shelter for Syrian Refugees
Practitioner:
HuffPost Lifestyle
Date:
Feb 19 2016
UK design students focusing on the use of design that moves beyond exclusivity, wealth, entitlement, and privilege, have created a coat that is also a shelter. The functional pocketed coat that converts into a tent and a sleeping bag, is intended for Syrian refugees. The students under the guidance of Dr.
The Mirror Casket Project
Practitioner:
De Andrea Nichols, Marcis Curtis, Sophie Lipman, Damon Davis, Mallory Nezam, Derek Laney, Elizabeth Vega
Date:
Sep 24 2014
The Mirror Casket project is a sculpture, performance, and visual call to action designed and orchestrated by a collaborative of St. Louis community artists in response to the shooting death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, MO.
The Swiss Public Welfare Outdoor Interactive Facility for Domestic Violence "Shut Him Down"
Practitioner:
The Swiss Public Welfare
Date:
Jan 12 2016
Neighbors in modern cities have less and less communication, and they all go about their business as soon as they close the door. In Switzerland, a woman dies every week as a result of domestic violence, so in an effort to get everyone to act, the charity has put up an interactive billboard in a shopping mall that shows a man in a family doing violence to a woman.
@muchachafanzine
Practitioner:
muchachafanzine
Date:
Jan 1 2011
The user muchachafanzine on instagram is an activist who writes a "decolonial native xicana feminist fanzine". They are an online activist and they spread their message through their page, the zine, and through merchandise. Daisy Salinas began Muchacha Fanzine as a feminist punk zine in 2011. Over the years, Muchacha has grown into a larger, submission-based compilation of work by marginalized voices from around the world.
Land Mark
Practitioner:
Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla
Date:
Jan 1 2001
From Public Delivery: "The Land Mark series was a civil disobedience campaign. Over 2001 and 2002, Allora and Calzadilla, together with a group of activists, encroached into one of the United States Navy Bombing range in a beach of Vieques, Puerto Rico. The U.S. Military and NATO have used this location for various military exercises for more than 60 years.
Lagos in the Red
Practitioner:
Jelili Atiku
Date:
Feb 11 2008
Made by Danish filmmakers Lotte Løvholm, Karen Andersen & Nanna Nielsen, Lagos in the Red follows Nigerian performance artist Jelili Atiku. Atiku uses his body as a prop as a means of sensitizing people to the problems that Nigeria - both as a people and a country - face.
Breaking the fourth wall: theater as human rights activism
Practitioner:
Developing Artists
Date:
Jul 19 2017
Human rights activism relies on an ability to tell stories to diverse audiences that will inspire action toward justice. Distributing information through journalism, whether it be traditional or new media, is the standard method of raising awareness. Globalization and the movement of people means that activists and artists from affected communities may cooperate to mutual benefit and find new audiences in the process.
War Drags You Out
Practitioner:
Saint Hoax
Date:
Jan 1 2014
War Drags You Out is a project by artist "Saint Hoax" looking at the similarities between defining characteristics of Drag Queens and Political Leaders. Text from St. Hoax's website: "After attending a drag show for the first time, I was struck by the richness of this glamour oriented culture. I took a minute to actually look at the faux queens and deconstruct their main components.

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