During 2008-2009, when the United States was entering a recession, the idea of the Homeless Art Gallery was popping up across Staten Island, New York City's least populated borough and biggest underdog. This is an example of art intervention, disrupting space to question the economic and political systems of capitalism. It was also an excellent community building project.
Note before the post: This article is great in highlighting a specific case of creative activism in the streets of New York City, but also gives some contextual background to how this project manifested.
On a sidewalk in the Village in downtown Manhattan, an African-American woman leans on her elbows and knees, wearing only black underpants. Scrawled in black marker all over her body are the words "Ain't I a Woman?"
Graffiti art is particularly viewed as a powerful form of social protest, and the (illegal) act of defacing can be as important as the message itself. Artist Void One has been arrested on numerous occasions for his politically-charged interventions.
“I didn’t set out to make political art but art is a platform where I can vent my frustrations” – Void One.
Civil activists set up a giant loaf of bread on the small square of a bus stop near the Cathedral Store in Center to remind passersbys that a large number of their fellow citizens live below the poverty threshold.
Danish 26-year-old art student Nadia Plesner designed this T-shirt depicting a Darfurian child holding a Louis Vuitton handbag as commentary on global disparity as it relates to war, developing nations, commercialism, and media.
In 2006, the fashion house sued Plesner for her appropriation of their trademark. The case was subsequently dismissed.
3-part webseries where Life Line Booths are set up with donated items in homeless communities for anyone's taking.
In addition to practical aid, we provide blank canvases, paper and markers for visitors to express their thoughts and share their stories. Through these shared stories, we hope to shatter the stigmas about homelessness at large.
Xu Bing, the internationally acclaimed Chinese artist, has brought his “Phoenix” installation to the majestic nave of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The two phoenixes, both Feng, the male, and Huang, the female, faced the decoratively carved bronze doors of the Cathedral, as if poised to take flight in the middle of the night.
From March 29 to April 28, 2012, artist Angel Chen transformed Toronto's Whippersnapper Gallery into a pop-up call centre to field questions on the financial crisis. Phone lines were manned by passers-by, volunteers and guest operators, all of whom solicited callers for discussion about the current economic climate.
Fundacion Voces and Festival Mulafest got together to promote creative ideas for social change. They started a campaign in social media to ask people to donate their Vespa motorcycles. After they collected the Vespas donated by the people, they put them together again and invited known artists to intervene them.
Mark Boyle has lived completely without money in England [since 2008], an experience which formed the basis for his first book, The Moneyless Man. He is also the founder of Freeconomy, an alternative economy with local groups across 171 countries.
He holds a degree in Business and for most of his professional career was involved in the management of organic food companies.
In the 2012 presidential election, did you know that one of the underdog anti-party runners was Gumby?!
In the attached video, you will hear Gumby offer transportation alternatives (Pokey and friends), challenges of not believing in vice presidents, and the importance of people and clay-people working together.
When award-winning architect David Rockwell started spending time in playgrounds with his young children, he was disturbed by the lack of imagination and variation in the way kids interact with standardized playground equipment. He spent five years developing the Imagination Playground, seeking private-public partnerships to see it realized.
We demand that AATA respond to Karen Pence's stated commitment to our field by asking her to publicly take action for the rights of LGBTQIA people, Native people, Black and Brown people, Muslims, survivors of sexual assault, people with disabilities, immigrants, refugees and all people who are in danger as a result of the policies of the current administration.
BEIJING — Like many art students, Zou Yaqi often worried she’d be unable to afford to live in Beijing after graduation. So, earlier this year, she decided to set herself a daunting challenge: Survive in the city for three weeks without spending a single yuan.
It turned out to be a piece of cake.
The Hungarian artist, undercover as an oligarch, infiltrated Manhattan’s ultra-luxury high-rises with her fake husband, Zoltan, for a book of intentionally unartful photos.
With past government shut downs and teetering the fiscal cliff, debt
ceiling now eliminated, credit line increase after credit line
increase? I thought my timely art piece may be interesting for your
viewers and spark healthy/heated discussion.
On the eve of Wells Fargo’s annual shareholders meeting in San Antonio, TX on Tuesday, home defenders, students, community groups, and activists in ten cities took peaceful action against the bank. Petitions signed by thousands of people were delivered to Wells Fargo branches and offices across the country calling on CEO John Stumpf to change the bank’s predatory practices.
It was October 31st, 2012, when a new artist appeared on social media. In a series of video clips, she proposed with a soft and slow speech that Peru hide its poverty. Her project consisted of installing vinyl pieces to avoid what she called "the visual pollution." She titled the project Don't be poor, be fashion(able).
In 2008, Iceland was in turmoil. There was a systematic failure of its three main commercial banks. The Economist called the collapse the largest suffered by any country in history, relative to Iceland’s population size. In response to what was seen as government inertia, protests began to take place from around October of that year. However, the real fun began in January 2009.
BBB are a network of militant bakers armed with pies that are ready to change the world. They stand for ecology, bioregionalism, human-scale economies, and proper gastronomics, and their method is inspired by Noël Godin, who has been pieing public figures since the '70s at the head of the International Patisserie Brigade.