Most Effective

Here are a few projects that the Actipedia staff believe show clear evidence of effectiveness. Feel free to write to us with any other suggestions!
Pothole Party!
Practitioner:
Contemporary Art Center
Date:
Jul 1 2012

“Potholes!” That’s what Nikola Pisarev, a co-founder of the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) in North Macedoniona responded with when asked what sort of impact creative activism can have. Nikola went on to explain what he meant, describing a series of actions that they had staged in small towns and municipalities across the nation. As is the case in many countries, Macedonia is plagued with official corruption.

Tim DeChristopher Thwarts a Land Auction (Bidder 70)
Practitioner:
Tim DeChristopher
Date:
Jul 27 2011

In December 2008, Tim DeChristopher, along with his church group, was protesting outside a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction of 116 parcels of public land in Utah's red rock country. Tim decided to take his protest inside and disrupt the auction itself. Instead, at the door, he was offered a bidder's paddle — which, after a split second of hesitation, he accepted.

Daniel Defoe's "The Shortest Way with Dissenters"
Practitioner:
Daniel Defoe
Date:
Jan 1 1702

"The Shortest Way with the Dissenters;" Or, "Proposals for the Establishment of the Church" is a pamphlet by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1702. Defoe was prompted to write the pamphlet by the increased hostility towards Dissenters in the wake of the accession of Queen Anne to the throne.

Tamms Year Ten
Practitioner:
Indecline Artist Collective
Date:
Jan 4 2013

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.

Otpor Barrel Action
Practitioner:
Otpor
Date:
May 1 2000

The Milosevic regime ruled over Serbia and Yugoslavia for about 13 years. To maintain control, the Milosevic regime was infamous for arbitrary arrests, beatings, imprisonment and even murder of avid opponents.

José Bové dismantles a McDonald's
Practitioner:
Andreja Kulunčić, Ahmet Ögüt
Date:
Aug 12 1999

José Bové, a sheep farmer/activist in Aveyron in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France, is a modern day Astérix, a mythical Gaul who drubbed foreign intruders centuries ago. In Bové's case, the intruder was McDonald's, the American fast food chain.

ACT UP protests
Practitioner:
ACT UP
Date:
Jan 15 1987

In 1987 with AIDS deaths in the thousands and government policy still criminally indifferent, activists formed ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) with the purpose of turning grief and fear into rage and action. 

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.

Levitating the Pentagon
Practitioner:
The Yippies
Date:
Oct 21 1967

It was 1967, and sentiment against the Vietnam War was in the air nationwide. The counterculture was flourishing on the heels of the Summer of Love. Organizers from Mobe — the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam — initially called for a massive march on Washington.

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