Beijing and the rest of cities in northern China suffer from years of smog pollution.The beige-gray miasma of smog brings coughs and rasping. Hospitals are crowded from respiratory ailments and a midday sky is so dim. But “Brother Nut(坚果兄弟)“, a performance artist, has something solid to show from the acrid soup in the air: a brick of condensed pollution.
WASHINGTON -- Thousands of shoes were laid outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to represent children who have been killed by gun violence. Avaaz, an international advocacy group, planned the demonstration to honor victims killed since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
Tamms Year Ten is an all-volunteer grassroots coalition of artists, prisoners, men formerly incarcerated in Tamms, family members and other people of conscience. In 2008, at the ten-year anniversary of the opening of the Tamms supermax prison, the group launched a legislative campaign to call for its reform or closure. Men were originally supposed to be there for one year—but at that point 1/3 of them had been in solitary confinement the entire decade.
Apple implemented improved reservation procedures and policies for employees dealing with the iPhone 6 launch at retail stores on September 19th, 2014, but the launch at the company’s Hong Kong store hadn't gone quite as smooth as elsewhere. The store was hit by protesters from the Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) and also required police to help disperse customers that had waited in line without reservations.
With the intention of recognizing the work of the Latin American carreteros (garbage pickers) that collect recyclable materials in wheel carts, and increase environmental consciousness, artist Mundano created “Pimp My Carroça"
As tech leaders faced tough questions from Congress, SumOfUs, an 18 million member advocacy organization, was right outside with a larger-than-life installation of the January 6th Capitol riot that shows the role Big Tech played in sparking the insurrection.
In Pittsburgh, Memphis and Los Angeles, massive billboards recently popped up declaring, “Birds Aren’t Real.”
On Instagram and TikTok, Birds Aren’t Real accounts have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers, and YouTube videos about it have gone viral.
Last month, Birds Aren’t Real adherents even protested outside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to demand that the company change its bird logo.
The Kiss of Love campaign in India is a non violent protest against moral policing. It started out as a Facebook page but gained momentum across India when a mob of conservative, right-wing party members attacked and demolished a coffee shop in Kozhikode, Kerala. Their grounds to do so was public display of affection by couples inside the coffee shop, which they saw as immoral activity.
Students at the University of California-San Diego were surprised when an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, commonly referred to as a drone, crashed in the middle of campus — or at least they thought that’s what happened.
grrrRoar! Ecology is sexier when you focus on women and fanged beasts. Fashions in leopard print help us make that connection globally and online. Polluters at least pause at the reminder that nature isn't dead yet and in fact stirs the same passion as the woman you just met who's saying something about "Fanged Wilds"!
On November 7, 2010 Pope Benedict XVI visited our city. He would have been better off staying at home. Even before he touched land we had rendered him impotent for life. Yes: im-po-tent.
Matthew Shepard was attacked by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson on October 7, 1998, the victim of an anti-gay hate crime. He was pronounced dead on October 12th. Shepard's funeral was protested by Fred Phelps, notorious leader of the Westboro Baptist Church. The protesters bore signs with phrases such as, "God hates Fags", "No tears for Queens", and "Fag Matt in hell".
Beyoncé delivered an intensely, unapologetic celebration of Black and HBCU culture at the Coachella Festival 2 weekends in a row. Not only were her performances some of the best live performances to date but they sent a pretty significant message to the world.
Here are some assessments of this beautiful demonstration of Blackness and Black Girl Magic:
From BBC News:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police say no one was arrested during a loud – and very colorful – KKK rally and counter-protest in uptown Charlotte Saturday afternoon.
Members of the National Socialist Movement joined the Ku Klux Klan for an anti-immigration rally at Old City Hall on West Trade Street, but the counter-protesters outnumbered them at least five to one.
Hobby Lobby is a chain of arts and crafts stores that has recently come under fire for denying its employees affordable access to contraception. Jasmine Shea redecorated many of the craft supplies in one of their stores to "troll" them by rearranging letters to spell out "pro choice" and "all women deserve birth control"
The book bloc constitutes a line of demonstrators holding cardboard-polyurethane-and-foam shields that are made to resemble giant book covers. This tactic tends to be used in actions that oppose neoliberal reform of education and libraries, especially in the form of austerity measures.
Daniel Hewson describes the use of protest posters and the work of collective, Burning Museum, and artist, Faith47, in the Fees Must Fall movement taking place in South Africa:
On April 23rd, in commemoration of the International Day for Animals in Laboratories, Animal Equality's activists in Rome, Madrid, Barcelona and many other cities across Europe carried out demonstrations against animal testing.
Thousands of Indigenous activists and environmentalists have converged in one of the Amazon’s biggest cities to voice their hopes and fears about the future of the world’s biggest rainforest.
The Brazilian city of Belém will this week host a two-day conclave bringing together the presidents of eight Amazon nations including Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela.
One of the oldest forms of human expression is art, so it’s no surprise that art is constantly used to critique another of humanity’s oldest practices, violence and war. In the world of art activism, the power of creativity and innovation has been used to create commentary about war since the beginning of time. Art that speaks out against the atrocities of violent conflict embodies empathy, care, and a plethora of other human emotions.
More than 30 South Korean college students shaved their heads in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul on Tuesday to protest Japan's decision to release water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.
Police periodically dispersed crowds, who chanted and held placards but did not stop the event from taking place, though there is an anti-pandemic ban on gatherings larger than 10 people.
The incident began when two clowns, Hannah Morgan and Louis Jargow, scaled the steel barricades protecting the landmark. The clowns began spanking and climbing the beast, traditional ways of coaxing a bull into anger in preparation for a Castilian corrida, or bullfight.
The Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City’s Lower East Side. Besides rod-puppet and hand puppet shows for children, the concerns of the first productions were rents, rats, police, and other problems of the neighborhood. More complex theater pieces followed, in which sculpture, music, dance and language were equal partners. The puppets grew bigger and bigger.
Even though Spain is constitutionally defined as a non-confessional nation, the Catholic Church still holds great power. For example, the Catholic Church is exempt from paying certain taxes, and can reclaim certain buildings as their property. This often creates frictions and conflicts with the activist groups and organizations that would prefer a more secular political environment.
The "Democracy Wall" in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn, New York was established in 2009. This wall is a long-term, community art activist project that is part wall mural, part past information archive.