In May of 2011, tens of thousands of people crowded Puerta del Sol in the center of Madrid in the most visible manifestation of sit-in protests against austerity and corruption. 15-M was an expression of the devastating effects of the 2008 recession, which harshly affected the middle class and condemned millions of people to poverty because of the crash of the housing bubble (Altares, 2021).
I was 24 years old. We were in danger. The Israeli planes were flying raids overhead. And I was designing posters." Hosni Radwan won't easily forget the conditions in the Beirut offices of the PLO Information Department, as an exhibition of the work it produced opens in London.
On 27th January 2013, the participatory project titled 175 hectares has run through the streets of the city of Trento (Italy). All the community has traced a line of white chalk that measures 6.3 km and the area included was 175 hectares: the exact surface area of the extermination camp of Birkenau (Auschwitz II, Poland).
Adrian Piper's "Funk Lessons" (1982-84) was a series of performances and collaborative events in which the artist taught white participants about black funk music, its culture, and its history, aiming to deconstruct stereotypical ideas about Black culture.
58,241 evictions were conducted in Spain in 2011, mostly through real estate speculation by the Mediterranean Savings Bank. In Intervention #1, the artist created a cooperative through which she contracted a construction worker (who himself had been evicted from his own house) to remove the entrance doors to other foreclosed properties. In this way, houses were accessible and open to public use, and occupants were not liable for housebreaking.
The ZAD (zone à défendre, or “zone to defend”) in Western France is 4000 acres of wetland, farmland and forest that was originally intended to be built into an airport in 1965 but is now an autonomous territory occupied by 40 different collectives looking to reclaim the land. There are around 200 people living permanently on the zone, in addition to some 2,000 people coming and going.
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.
It all started when an Icelandic girl took off her top on Twitter in a bid to promote sexual equality, only for her to be verbally attacked by some male Icelandic tit troll. Despite both comments being deleted, Twitter was suddenly awash with bare breasted ladies ("Th?"s one here is for feeding babies.
This action, to be released to the wider public this Friday, March 15th, was the design of t-shirts in support of British Charity, Comic Relief, an organization dedicated to bringing positive and lasting change to vulnerable youth communities in Europe (specifically in the U.K.) and various countries in Africa and, most critically, addressing the root causes of their poverty.
By Joe Laur
Members of the creative collective Neozoon, a group of artists based in Paris and Berlin, are staging a protest against using animal furs as fashion by turning fur coats into street art graffiti.
Apparently, they are taking furs and fur garments and reshaping them into animals in action on streets, along alleyways, against walls and even on trees in parks.
Gender equality charity Women of the World (WOW) is launching a one-day festival of activism that invites people from all generations, genders and backgrounds to take part in conversations around sexual violence.
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.
In 2013, Shell sent out press releases about their upcoming event, the Science Slam, which would aim to “celebrate the company’s responsible oil production” and “showcase ideas for renewable energy by scientists and students.” Essentially, Shell organized this event in the hopes that it would allow the multinational oil company to appear as if it is actually concerned about the environment and finding alternatives to oil.
A couple of weeks ago Danish chef Rasmus Munk made Michelin-starred dishes, now he prepares pasta salad and tartlets for the homeless in Copenhagen.
In the past few weeks, COVID-19 has forced several restaurants in Denmark to close, including the well-known Alchemist.
Charities working on the Greek island of Lesbos have made a massive peace sign out of discarded life jackets to honour refugees who've died trying to cross the Mediterranean.
More than 100 volunteers used 3,000 vests to form the symbol on a hill outside the village of Molyvos.
More than one million refugees and migrants have reached Europe by sea since the start of 2015.
"Featuring giant ocean dice that originally appeared in the booklet "drift" by Max Mulhern, these dice were launched in international waters to create a visually stunning ode to chance and luck. This project can also be found under the title: "the greatest floating craps game on earth"." --AquaDice website
On 6 January 2012, Metrópolis (TVE 2) broadcast "Activismo y Ficción", a report directed by Enmedio members Leónidas Martín and Núria Campabadal. It looks at a series of creative projects that lie somewhere between fiction and social activism.
Climate protesters in Washington, D.C. were handcuffed on Thursday after they dragged paint on a glass cover protecting an art sculpture.
The incident happened at the National Gallery of Art by the activism group Declare Emergency in an attempt to bring attention to climate change, according to the Washington Post.
Photography has long been associated with acts of resistance. It is used to document action, share ideas, inspire change, tell stories, gather evidence and fight against injustice.
This group exhibition at the SLG, organised in collaboration with the V&A, brings together works by international artists and collectives who are using the camera to challenge and move beyond traditional protest photography.
The political artist I chose to investigate is Ruth Peche, a Spanish sculptor and photographer. Her themes tend to center around plastic waste and the impact it has on the environment, using this as a muse for describing the relationship human society has with the natural world. Peche’s interest in art activism, particularly with themes of preserving the environment, is something that was sparked for her in during her childhood years.
The Mischief Makers built a giant bird as a symbolic way of opening up Serb borders and made an impressive mosaic on the same theme, possibly to be used in a new youth centre. Clowns trained and joked about at the final parade to end the week of workshops. An other impressive feature of the activities in Novi Sad was the quickly formed samba band, which did a couple of stunning performances in the centre of town.
“Piano Stairs” is an interactive playful musical stairway installation created into the Odenplan underground station of Stockholm to make people use stairs more often than elevator. The project was part of a Wolkswagen initiative called “The fun theory” whose main objective and mission is to “change people’s behaviour for the better by making it fun to do.”
Encarnación Aragoneses Urquijo (886-1952), commonly known by her literary pseudonym Elena Fortún, was a Spanish writer who focused in children and teenagers literature.
She was born in Madrid, where she studied Philosophy and Humanities. In 1908 she married Eusebio de Gorbea y Lemmi, a member of the republican army. They left the country after the Civil War to live frist in France and then in Argentina.