Projects tagged "London"

Becoming an Image
Practitioner:
Cassils
Date:
Jun 1 2012
Cassils' Becoming an Image confronts issues of queer and trans visibility, bodily violence, and the politics of witnessing. The performance uses a powerful blend of media—including live action in darkness, flash photography, clay sculpture, and sound—to explore how trauma and resilience are physically and symbolically inscribed onto the queer body.
Dirty Money in Art & Big Pharma
Practitioner:
Nan Goldin & P.A.I.N.
Date:
Jul 20 2018
Between 1995 and 2017 the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin brought in $35 billion USD in revenue for Purdue Pharma, most of which went directly into the hands of the Sackler family.
ACTIVISTS POUR CONCRETE OVER 'ANTI-HOMELESS' SPIKES
Practitioner:
London Black Revolutionaries
Date:
Jun 13 2014
The war against London's "anti-homeless" spikes escalated today from sign-waving to radical criminal action In the small hours of the morning, some activists dressed as builders poured concrete over the metal spikes outside a Tesco Metro on Regent Street, before vowing to strike again.
Poor Little Fish
Practitioner:
Yan Lu
Date:
Apr 4 2012
Is it possible that through affective design we can change our consumer behavior? Yan Lu and his "Little Fish Project" offer a design inspired solution to excess use of water. "As consumption is incalculable, saving is often neglected through daily consumption.
The Whole World Is An Art School
Practitioner:
Bob and Roberta Smith
Date:
Feb 13 2018
Bob and Roberta Smith has been at the forefront of activist art for 2 decades; so who better to ask about how art is responding to these politically bleak times?
Multi-Story-Rite of Spring in a Car Park
Practitioner:
Multi-Storey
Date:
Jul 23 2011
On July 23rd 2011 a newly formed organization Multi-Story performed Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in a multi-story car park in Peckham Rye London. In doing so it completely subverted the entrenched traditions of the performance of classical music. The organization used student musicians and did not charge admission.
Old People's Home
Practitioner:
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Date:
Jul 12 2008
These thirteen life-like sculptures resemble familiar politicians, admirals, generals, bishops, and dictators. Portrayed as frail seniors, they sit dozing off and drooling in electric wheelchairs. They roll on a slow collision course, crashing into each other like bumper cars.
Empty the Cages
Practitioner:
Dan Witz, PETA
Date:
Sep 1 2014
Fifty-six-year-old Dan Witz — who originally hails from Chicago but lives in Brooklyn — has been producing street art in New York since the seventies. And not just any street art. Wondrous works that trick the eye and often elude passersby altogether. Oh, but when one realizes what he or she is seeing, it’s pure revelation.
Music video in support of gay marriage rights
Practitioner:
Sam Smith
Date:
Feb 5 2015
Grammy nominee and Rolling Stone cover star Sam Smith unveiled the video for his new single "Lay Me Down," the latest track off his platinum-selling debut album In the Lonely Hour. The video, filmed at the parish church of St.
Art, Activism, and the City: Illuminating Social Change
Practitioner:
Donkeys
Date:
Mar 13 2025
The creative fusion of art and activism in urban spaces has propelled the British collective Led by Donkeys into the spotlight, garnering millions of views for their interventions on social media. Their critical visual occupations - whether billboard messages during the day or large-scale projections at night - raise a compelling question: which medium holds the greater persuasive power?
Diagram of the "Brookes" Slave Ship
Practitioner:
18th century abolitionists
Date:
Jan 1 1787
This diagram of the 'Brookes' slave ship is probably the most widely copied and powerful image used by the abolitionist campaigners. It depicts the ship loaded to its full capacity - 454 people crammed into the hold.The 'Brookes' sailed the passage from Liverpool via the Gold Coast in Africa to Jamaica in the West Indies.
No Borders in the NHS
Practitioner:
Diarmaid McDonald, Leora Fridman, Docs Not Cops
Date:
Sep 30 2017
A creative action against the introduction of mandatory immigration checks and upfront charging in the UK’s National Health Service, including a systematic social media campaign under the hashtag
Yoko Ono, Add Colour (Refugee Boat) presented by the Tate Modern
Practitioner:
Yoko Ono
Date:
Apr 6 2024
Add Colour (Refugee Boat) begins as an all-white boat in an all-white room. Ono’s instruction for this collective, participatory work reads: ‘Just blue like the ocean.’ You are invited to contribute your hopes and beliefs in blue and white.
Savages
Practitioner:
Savages
Date:
Jan 22 2016
Savages are an all-female post-punk band that attempt to motivate people to be informed and take part in politics. They "try to give people a platform to express their own ideas" as Fay Milton of the band explains. The following is the manifesto Savages wrote for their 2016 album, Adore Life:
London 2012 Olympics: Anti-BP activists carry out sponsor sacking hoax as protests grow
Practitioner:
Campaign for a Sustainable Olympics
Date:
Apr 11 2012
Hoax: The London 2012 Olympic Games website was faked by group CAMSOL The official London 2012 Olympic Games website was faked on Wednesday by protesters demanding that BP be dropped as one of the event’s official sponsors. Published April 13, 2012 on The Telegraph UK by Jacquelin Magnay
Estados de excepción
Practitioner:
Lorena Wolffer
Date:
Nov 25 2013
Estados de excepción (States of Exception) is series of participatory cultural interventions created for women to freely and joyfully exercise our rights in public and secure environments, currently being produced in Mexico and abroad.
Much Ado About BP
Practitioner:
Reclaim Shakespeare Company
Date:
Oct 24 2012
"Members of the Reclaim Shakespeare Company jumped on stage at the Noël Coward theatre to deliver another surprise anti-BP performance. Just before the second half of a BP-sponsored Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) performance of Much Ado About Nothing was due to begin, the three actor-vists performed a short Shakespeare-inspired piece.
Unland
Practitioner:
Doris Salcedo
Date:
Mar 19 1998
Doris Salcedo talked extensively with victims of the violence in Colombia. For the project titled Unland she spoke specifically with children who had witnessed the murder of their parents. This piece was a poetic response and representation of their testimony. Salcedo combined halves of tables together to make a whole. In the seam where the tables joined Salcedo meticulously sewed the tables together using white silk thread, dark hair and bone.
Homeworkers
Practitioner:
Margaret F. Harrison
Date:
Jan 1 1977
Homeworkers 1977 is the central piece of a multidisciplinary project that comprised photographs, interviews, news clippings and a large canvas documenting the situation of non-unionised women doing manual work at home.
Slashing the Rokeby Venus
Practitioner:
Mary Raleigh Richardson, WSPU
Date:
Mar 10 1914
On March 10, 1914, Mary Richardson slashed Velasquez's "Rokeby Venus" with a small axe during public hours at the National Gallery in London. A militant suffragette protesting the force-feeding of imprisoned suffragettes in prison (and the Cat and Mouse Act which released the starving women only until they were slightly healthier only to imprison them again), Richardson released this statement after her arrest:
'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' inspires real-life billboards
Practitioner:
avaaz, Justice 4 Grenfell
Date:
Feb 20 2018
A pair of activist groups have taken a tactic straight from the Oscar front-runner “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
Invisible Homeless
Practitioner:
Luke Jerram, 1625 Independent People
Date:
Dec 22 2015
Artist Luke Jerram created a genderless sleeping figure made of glass lying on a piece of cardboard and exhibited in the streets of London. The artist said in an interview "For every person you see sleeping on the streets, there are many others sleeping in hostels, squats and other forms of unsatisfactory and insecure accommodation.
Harris Reed is building a fantasy world for gender-fluid fashion
Practitioner:
Harris Reed
Date:
Feb 18 2021
Last June, Harris Reed became a member of the “Class of 2020” -- the crop of young fashion talent who graduated into an industry on rocky ground due to the pandemic. Over the eight months that have passed since earning his cap and gown at Central Saint Martins, Harris seems to have done a good job of finding his feet.
Ice Watch
Practitioner:
Olafur Eliasson
Date:
Dec 11 2018
Olafur Eliasson , the Danish-Icelandic artist. Some of his exceptional artworks focus on climate and environmental changes. In 2003, he installed The Weather Project , which remains one of Tate Modern’s popular installations. He is also known for his freestanding waterfall in Versailles , his installation in which he installed a riverbed in a museum , and his gigantic rainbow installation in Aarhus, Denmark.
3 Billboards Outside Grenfell, London
Practitioner:
Justice 4 Grenfell
Date:
Feb 16 2018
Activism imitated art when Justice 4 Grenfell protesters drove three provocative signs through the streets of London. In a clever nod to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the Oscar-nominated film directed by Martin McDonagh, the billboards were bright red, with black letters that read: 71 DEAD AND STILL NO ARRESTS? HOW COME?

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