It has been a tumultuous and anxious week for women in Turkey. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree at midnight last Friday, annulling Turkey's ratification of the Istanbul Convention on violence against women, women poured onto the streets of Turkish cities to protest. Further demonstrations are planned.
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.
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.
‘In Her Shoes’ was a street exhibition of stories from women and men affected by the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution. These stories were selected from the ‘In Her Shoes’ project Facebook page. We hung copies of the stories on ribbon between trees and provided pens, paper and a seating area for people to sit down and write a response to the stories if they chose.
Topic: Displaced people
Concept: Explore and communicate some of the issues around displacement in a global, European and Irish context.
Date of action: 11th March 2.30 to 4.20 pm
Place: Emmett Place, Cork City, Ireland
In the UK, the secretary of state Theresa May is attempting to pass a new investigatory draft bill that would essentially rid all British citizens of the right to privacy and security on the internet. Internet providers will be required to maintain user's browser history for 12 months amongst other things. In light of these revelations, it seems privacy will no longer be a basic human right, but an add-on option to our internet services.
In 2016 an eye-catching sparrow was spotted in Scotland. The bird had ingested feed pellets from a nearby salmon farm, turning its feathers pink. Cramped in underwater feedlots, farmed salmon have no access to the prey that colour their flesh in the wild. Instead, they are fed artificial colourants mixed with supplements, drugs, and hormones, causing them to relentlessly produce the additive-filled flesh that fills supermarket shelves.
FEMEN is an organization that is revolutionizing the feminist movement. Founded in Ukraine in 2008 and adopted in Spain in 2013, FEMEN protests gender-based issues such as inequalities, violence, patriarchy, etc. Since its creation, it has spread to several other countries, and there have been hundreds of organized protests.
RACC Satellite Space in Garden City
1205 Franklin Avenue, 3rd Floor, Garden City, NY 11530
June 26, 10 am – July 28, 7 pm
Monday – Friday, 10 am – 7 pm, free admission
Please write to racc.ny@mail.ru or call (347) 662 1456
The artist is available for interviews
A vibrant red mural in the heart of Barcelona serves as both an artistic expression and social activism. Officially known as the Todos Juntos Podemos Parar el SIDA (Together We Can Stop AIDS), the public art was created by the renowned American artist and AIDS activist Keith Haring in 1989. More than just a work of art, this mural represents a powerful call to action against the AIDS epidemic that was ravaging communities worldwide at the time.
Tate Modern considers activists' wind turbine for art collection: Liberate Tate, an art collective who object to BP sponsorship, have offered the 16 metre turbine blade to the gallery
A 1.5 tonne, 16.5 metre-long wind turbine blade carried last month to the Tate Modern by artists objecting to the gallery's sponsorship by oil company BP is being considered for the national art collection.
This work addresses inequalities and disparities experienced specifically by LGTBIQ peoples in Spain. In the heart of this picture are six individuals dressed in queer fashion walking and linking arms. This is a powerful depiction. Usually, especially in a global context, it is unsafe for queer people to brave the streets alone. Here in Pozo’s work this represents pride without fear.
On July 23rd 2011 a newly formed organization Multi-Story performed Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in a multi-story car park in Peckham Rye London. In doing so it completely subverted the entrenched traditions of the performance of classical music. The organization used student musicians and did not charge admission.
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (around 1503-19) was attacked at the Musée du Louvre, in Paris, today by environmental activists who threw soup over the world's most-recognised and most-viewed painting. The celebrated portrait, which has been protected by security glass for the past 70 years, was not damaged in the attack.
"Twelve members of the 'Reclaim Shakespeare Company' staged an unexpected protest performance inside the 'Shakespeare: Staging the World' exhibition at the British Museum.
Jacques-Louis David was an active member of the French Revolution, and his works often depicted his political affiliations. David’s painting The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons portrays the scene of Brutus, an important figure of the Roman Republic, reacting to the death of his sons. Since they wanted to overthrow the government and restore the monarchy, Brutus ordered their death.
Spanish citizens held the first hologram protest in history in order to protest without violating the new draconian guidelines of the National Security Act, the new amendments to the Penal Code and the Anti-terror law. Thousands of people marched past a Spanish parliament building in Madrid over the weekend weekend to protest the new law that they say endangers civil liberties. But none of them were actually there.
Breach Theatre’s multimedia play The Beanfield joins a growing trend of artists using documentary inquiry to hold violent and corrupt institutions to account.
"Denial of Family Values, Gay and Anti-gay Propaganda in Russia"
105 NY-110, Melville, NY 11747
June 3, 11 am – June 28, 7 pm
Monday – Friday, 11 am – 7 pm, free admission
Artist talk – June 28, 2 pm
Please write to racc.ny@mail.ru or call (347) 662 1456
The artist is available for interviews
Artist and disability rights activist Liz Crow has produced another iteration of her long-standing performance project, “Bedding Out.” In an attempt to bridge the divide between her private and public lives, she invited the world to witness the way she exists in the privacy of her own bed. Staged at the Salisbury Arts Centre just outside of London, visitors could watch Crow as she lives in an installed bedroom for 48 hours straight.
The term “Afrofuturism” was coined in the 1990s by the cultural critic Mark Dery, who recognized a preoccupation with the future in the work of a number of black artists. Ever since, it has remained a term that is retrospectively applied to seemingly disparate artists, from Missy Elliot to Toni Morrison. What unites the movement is a shared fascination with the black experience, particularly in America.
As a result of the social stigma of homosexuality, lesbian feminists were rejected and silenced as a radical minority within the mainstream Movimiento Feminista (MF). Lesbianas Sin Duda (LSD) is a queer activist group based in Madrid that arose in the early 1990s as a response to this erasure.
During a cold January morning in 2020, Animanaturalis, a nonprofit group focused on ending the suffering of animals across Spain and Latin America gathered to protest the use, production, and sale of fur in Spain. In a blog post on their website, the group discusses the horrid living conditions on fur farms as well as statistics and alternatives related to fur sales (Animanaturalis, n.d.).
Estados de excepción (States of Exception) is series of participatory cultural interventions created for women to freely and joyfully exercise our rights in public and secure environments, currently being produced in Mexico and abroad.
A collective resistance movement dedicated to reasserting communal ownership of common spaces, Reclaim the Streets staged its first action on Camden High Street in 1995, when activists closed the road to vehicle traffic to make way for a street party. Combining the tactics of non-violent direct action with 90's UK rave culture, organizers kept the location secret until the last moment to preempt police interception.