In September 2003 the news went out nationwide: Karlsplatz, one of Vienna's main squares, is soon to be renamed Nikeplatz. Apart from the new name, it appears that a huge monument in the shape of Nike's famous "Swoosh" logo will be built in Nikeplatz. Needless to say, it is all fake.
For this edition of ADE, Stichting NDSM-werf invited art- and activist group Tools for Action + Floor to use their terrain as a public practice space for RÆV REHEARSAL. They invite the public to rehearse new forms of assembly. With a Bluetooth speakers system, floating inflatable sculptures, and a minimalist techno beat, they move through the city like a radiating dancing swarm.
Organized in large part by Project Laundry List, in 2007 a four-hundred foot clothesline was strung in front of Hydro-Quebec headquarters to protest their destruction of the Rupert River and the traditional hunting grounds of the Cree and Innu so that people in the US and along the border can dry their clothes in a tumble dryer. Project Laundry List promotes clotheslines as a simple way for America to save 10% on its residential energy bill!
In 1984, a group of women in New York gathered outside the Museum of Modern Art as part of a protest. A group show, An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, was showing 165 artists, 152 male artists exhibited alongside just 13 women.
Outraged, they attended the protest, bringing placards and chanting outside the museum. But a handful of women within the larger crowd learned something.
The Rev Lucy Winkett is having trouble sleeping. This is because her church on Piccadilly has decided to erect a full-size copy of the Israeli separation barrier to block off her Christopher Wren church. And because she lives above the shop, the grim presence of this temporary structure is with her all the time. "Politics aside, living beside the 26ft wall is having a curious effect on those who are here.
Hate hunting? Want to do something creative to protect wildlife and affect positive change? The Hunter's Poppet is a witch-craftivism intervention, free to use and share. A 'poppet' is a ritual object made to represent a human figure, charged with a specific intention. This set of instructions with images guides you in making your own poppet to place safely in an outdoor area.
WHAT WOULD WE FEEL IF WE COULD HEAR EACH TREE FALLING IN THE WORLD?
333HZ is an installation translating deforestation monitoring data into a sensorial experience.
If a tree falls in a distant forest, and no is around? does it make a sound?
Two reflective stickers in a bathroom stall. When you sit down you can see your face in the bottom one. When you stand you can see your face in the top one, your groin in the bottom one. The top one says "Public", the bottom one says "Private". Or maybe the top one says "Private", and the bottom one says "Public". Which one is correct?
"Eight-year-old Christian Bucks from Roundtown Elementary School noticed that some of his classmates did not have any friends to play with during recess.
His solution was to introduce a “Buddy Bench”, where lonely classmates could choose to sit if they wanted a playmate. If two children were seated there, they could ask each other if they wanted to play or talk.
Tiny Pricks is a public art project created and curated by Diana Weymar. Contributors from around the world are stitching Donald Trump’s words into textiles, creating the material record of his presidency and of the movement against it. Tiny Pricks Project holds a creative space in a tumultuous political climate.
Say hello to ArtActivistBarbie (AAB), whose modus operandi is small signs, big questions and a fabulous wardrobe. With her inviting call to arms, “Refuse to be the muse!” this fierce new incarnation of Barbie is helping to challenge art galleries and museums worldwide about their woeful lack of women and other minorities in their collections, and reluctance to consider the female gaze.
In 2001, Peter Gibson, a street artist, began by painting bike additional bike lanes onto the streets in Montreal because he was tired of how cars dominated the road. This transferred into more works criticizing car culture in general. Some of his work includes a crosswalk turned into a large footprint and lines on the road transformed into life lines.
In March 2013 we started a grassroots boycott movement against Coca-Cola for exploiting legal loopholes to kill off container deposit recycling in the Northern Territory. We simply used the same successful strategy as the ANZ Out of Order action, putting out of order signs on Coca Cola vending machines and posting the photos on social media.
Counterspace is an independent curatorial platform functioning as the first decolonial thinktank mapping cultural activism worldwide. It shapes collectively decolonial toolkits with common tools and resources, and a global directory browsable by continent, praxis, and social construct, as a Beuys-inspired ‘social sculpture’ revisited, and an alternative map of the universe.
"Nearly 2 million decaying Goodyear tires lie submerged off the coast
of South Florida, decrepit hunks of rubber that have gradually succumbed
to the pressures of tides and tropical storms. The steel cables that
once strung them along the ocean floor have snapped, and many have
drifted into the natural reefs only 70 feet away, permanently scarring
them. What is now a 36-acre underwater junkyard was once the
An exhibition of textile-based work by disabled artists, organised in protest at the inaccessibility of an exhibition by a popular artist, when it came to Leeds.
With a grand total of 0 permanent residents and an average winter temperature of --56.2°F, Antarctica is a bit more than your average “no man’s land.” This didn’t deter artist duo Lucy + Jorge Orta, however, who took an expedition to the territory in 2007 on commission from The End of the World Biennale. Nine years later, the duo’s cumulative work created during the program is finally on display in NYC at Jane Lombard Gallery.
A disability / textile arts project, challenging assumptions about disabled artists & highlighting shoddy treatment of disabled people by current government:
https://shoddyexhibition.wordpress.com/
To raise awareness among the general public about the global clean water crisis, the artist Belo created an image composed of 66,000 cups of colored rainwater simulating levels of impurities found in water all over the planet. This major work of 3,600 square feet, representing a fetus in the maternal womb, emphasizes the necessity of water, even before birth, for each living person.
The son of an exiled political dissident, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s work is inherently political. Since 1995 Ai Weiwei has been traveling the world, photographing himself flipping off iconic monuments of power in his Study of Perspective series.
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.
If you're a bibliophile you'll get a kick out of the car-turned-library that can be found in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Artist Raul Lemesoff took an old 1979 Ford Falcon, a popular mode of transport amongst the military forces of its time, and transformed it into a mobile library shaped like a tank.
Jorge Rodríguez-Gerarda is a cuban Artist that was born in 1966. One of his projects was naed Expectations in which he did with sand and grave a massive image of Barack Obama, as a way to reflect all what this presidential candidate representated in terms of change.
A performance in support of a bill banning the catch of cetaceans for cultural and educational purposes in Russia. The bill was supposed to pass readings in the lower house of parliament but unfortunately it was postponed; this activity is meant to help generate support for it to pass. The action was timed to coincide with the World Whale and Dolphin Day (Feb 19).