On November 13, 2012, Joey Skaggs dressed up as Santa Claus and rode a three-wheeler to the United Nations in New York, NY. Skaggs’ bike was equipped with a fake mobile rocket launcher and a sign that read “ Peace on earth, or else!” A group of elves also accompanied Santa to the UN, and they alternated between handing out green toy soldiers to bystanders and singing their altered version of Jingle Bells, as seen below:
In the early 1970s, Denmark was hit by the energy crisis sweeping the globe. A rise in the price of oil led by the nations of OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) led to a global economic slow-down, especially in industrialised nations.
In March 2016, Chinese feminist activists had planned to launch a crowdfunding campaign against sexual harassment advertisements, and they worked hard to raise 40,000 yuan in a month and a half. However, after perfunctory, evasive, and rejection by the relevant departments, anti-sexual harassment advertisements finally failed to go online.
"In a world where artists do themselves no financial favours by voicing critical political sentiments, Björk’s iconoclastic position and perspective is almost unique. Despite having made zero concessions to commerciality in her music, she has sold millions of albums, and remains as vital today as she was a quarter of a century ago.
The DREAM Act Union is a collective of theater artists, educators and activists working to raise awareness about the challenges faced by immigrant youth and the DREAM Act through the creation of theatrical events and partnerships that connect artists and audiences to the broader social movement. DREAM Act Union is a project conceived by playwright Chiori Miyagawa for Re/Union Company.
‘Since Plotinus’, writes Joseph Tanke (2019, p. 486), ‘Western art has been consecrated to beauty, and beautiful art has been understood as the achievement of good form’. But alongside this interest in beauty and form, art has been committed to politics and perspectives, equity and rights. Consequently, and particularly since the start of the modern era, artists frequently initiate or participate in ‘difficult conversations’.
Public arts advocator, Creative Time, and the MTA Arts for Transit and Urban Design (AFT) partnered to present Heard NY, a public art dance and music installation facilitated by artist, choreographer, and fashion designer Nick Cave. Heard NY was created to instill a production of wonder in a quotidian landscape.
ARTS/CULTURE
FOKAL is the hub in Haiti where locals and international visitors from all walks of life -- artists, writers, citizens, activists-- come together to discuss the most pressing nation- and community-building issues, enjoy cutting edge artistic expressions, and share their ideas.
From the screaming queens of the Stonewall Riots to the contemporary Human Rights Campaign corporate gays, the politics and methods of queer activism have clearly fluxuated. By the late 1970s, the radicalism of stonewall was replaced with a more formal Gay Liberation movement that focused on civil rights.
Conquest is a compelling new collective performance conceived by acclaimed artist Pope.L (b. Newark, 1955). It is inspired by his iconic solo crawls, where the artist dragged himself across a number of different urban landscapes. Navigating the streets and parks of Downtown Manhattan, Conquest extends this irreverent and provocative forty-year tradition of public performance with an ambitious group crawl involving over 140 volunteers.
At a time when the city of Portland was considering stripping Martin Luther King Jr.'s name off a local street, a covert organization calling itself Group X changed the name of another downtown street to Malcolm X Street in a clandestine overnight action.
La Casa Negra is a moving artist squat that occupies houses destined for demolition as temporary venues for site specific performance art in Barranco (Lima, Peru). Artists use all of the available rooms (kitchen, bathrooms, stairs, backyard) to enact a series of critical art pieces, while using the space as a demonstration of artist resilience in an increasingly gentrifying neighborhood.
A viral video of a student dance performance in southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has won praise for speaking out against so-called ghost marriages, which many today see as an archaic and even dangerous tradition.
‘I’m an Egyptian, Muslim drag queen who aims to raise issues about Middle Eastern / LBGTQ issues within the Arab world and Muslim community. For too long it was drilled in my head that I was wrong, that I was going to Hell, and that’s simply not fair. No one speaks about the harsh mistreatment we go through as gay people in the Arab world. The internal torture and shame is more than enough.
One interesting thing about this stunt is that there is no record of it other than the Yippies' wonderful testimony. We believe that it actually happened, but it shows that storytelling is the most important part of any action of this sort.
Shift Change Dress is a community fashion & art project that utilizes a shift dress sewing pattern as a medium for communication and action. Participants are encouraged to use the pattern as a blank canvas for their art or message and to share their work with the community.
“He describes it as a “family theme park unsuitable for small children” – and with the Grim Reaper whooping it up on the dodgems and Cinderella horribly mangled in a pumpkin carriage crash, it is easy to see why.
Banksy’s new show, Dismaland, which opened on Thursday on the Weston-super-Mare seafront, is sometimes hilarious, sometimes eye-opening and occasionally breathtakingly shocking.
"Thai artists and art students are on the frontline of their country’s swelling pro-democracy movement, calling for reforms of Thailand’s military-backed government, and breaking both taboo and national law to criticise the nation’s monarchy.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —
Supporters of the LGBTQ+ and arts communities in West Palm Beach are protesting the closure of two popular spots for creatives in the city.
A New York blogger impersonating David Koch successfully prank called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. David Koch is one of the two wealthy brothers who were big donors to his political campaign and GOP efforts generally.
Museums and art galleries are not usually the sites of feminist political protest. Yet over the past couple of years, before the lockdown, gallery visitors all over the UK had noticed a small, determined activist whose modus operandi is “Small signs, big questions, fabulous wardrobe”.
This is the image confronting Greeks from an Athenian drain . "Hello, I live in the sewers of Athens," says the cockroach. "Yes, me too," says an Athenian walking past, apparently unfazed by the idea of an insect talking to him from a drain.
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.
"SOA Cycle, and what it later became, which is called the Democracy Cycle, is a group of seven large works that approach the question of democracy. What is democracy? How is it constructed? How is it implemented? Is it something that is to be thought of in relation to its political influence? Or is it something that plays out in terms of cultural and social, and even emotional terms, for instance?
If you've learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let's watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons:
A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he's doing is so simple, it's almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!