Bob and Roberta Smith has been at the forefront of activist art for 2 decades; so who better to ask about how art is responding to these politically bleak times?
Beyoncé delivered an intensely, unapologetic celebration of Black and HBCU culture at the Coachella Festival 2 weekends in a row. Not only were her performances some of the best live performances to date but they sent a pretty significant message to the world.
Here are some assessments of this beautiful demonstration of Blackness and Black Girl Magic:
From BBC News:
“Thank you!”
That’s how comedian Michelle Wolf answered Sean Spicer’s declaration that her headlining stand-up set at the the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was “a disgrace.” Her response is instructive: To Wolf, an insult from Spicer is an accolade – and accolades, surely, would be an insult. She’s right.
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”.
"My body is not pornography" — that is the slogan written under many of the social media posts inspired by Yulia Tsvetkova. Women are posting pictures of themselves showing off their curves, body hair and scars, along with feminist art and pictures of everyday objects that look like vaginas — like fruits or flowers.
With delicate composition, striking details and strong emotion, five editorial posters drawn by Wuheqilin have attracted some half million followers to his account on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform. His political views expressed in his art have led to some netizens dubbing him the "Wolf Worrier artist."
Creative Time, a public art fund, invited artists to make online comics that addressed contemporary issues. Every month for two years a new artist presented their comic strip online. At the end, there were a total of 24 comic works that were archived online and also released as a publication in 2010.
The video for “Borders,” a song off MIA's album Matahdatah, features images recalling all sorts of migrations from the developing world—there are people crossing deserts, fences, and bodies of water. Though much of M.I.A.’s work has been about women and children, this video is filled with brown men: the ultimate bogeyman for many in the West, stereotyped as terrorists, criminals, and job-takers.
"Make a Wave" is a song sung by Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas for Disney's Friends for Change, a charity group formed by Disney for their "Friends for Change" campaign. The song was written by Scott Krippayne and Jeff Peabody, the same team that penned Jordin Sparks' song "This Is My Now" for American Idol. "Make a Wave" was introduced and performed at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
#ChallengeAccepted, also known as the Challenge Accepted campaign, is an Instagram tagged challenge as well as an awareness campaign on empowering women involving sharing posts of black-and-white selfies.
MOTHER EARTH is broken from incessant decadent wars carelessly perpetuated by mindless ,vicious political imbeciles. Our natural wealth plundered by greedy ,gluttonous economic dare-devils, imbibing crude oil and fresh blood . Warlord-ism set the suns of our freedom, our earth is torn naked . War is ravaging the beauty of African diamond fields ,We are now Wretched Vagabonds . Warlords are frying peace in oil springs of the Gulf.
It’s certainly a long way from Grand Theft Auto. Henry David Thoreau’s classic “Walden” is the inspiration for what Smithsonian Magazine is calling “the world’s most improbable video game”: Walden, a Game.
From creativetimereports.org:
Artist-activist collective MTL's clickable collages connect disparate aspects of Palestine's geographical and political landscape, offering provocative insight into "how Palestinians suffer and struggle in ways that are parallel to those elsewhere" according to philosopher Michael Hardt.
"Vaccines Work. Here Are the Facts." is a short web comic by Maki Naro explaining "The risks, the misinformation, and the science behind history’s greatest life saver."
The message we keep hearing over and over again from government and health officials is that it’s imperative to practice social distancing during the COVID-19 crisis: To benefit public health, we have to stay at home. But what if your home isn’t a safe space?
"This is the video that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé don’t want you to see.
The big brands want you to believe they are taking steps to reduce single-use plastic BUT they are actually working hand in hand with the fossil fuel industry to produce even MORE!
Watch now to learn that the actual “Story of the Bottle” has devastating effects on our health, planet, and communities!
A computer game as a data visualizer - a daily reenactment of the total number of USA gun homicides since January 1st, 2018.
The project works from a daily update of gun homicides as scraped from the Gun Violence Archive.
The Arte Útil archive presents a growing archive of over two hundred case studies that imagine, create and implement beneficial outcomes by producing tactics that change how we act in society.
Suey Park (@suey_park) is the 23-year-old freelance writer and organizer behind the hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick, which quickly became a trending topic on Twitter Monday with thousands of Asian American women and others from around the world adding their 140 characters to the conversation on Asian American feminism.
In 2012, Sandra Fluke stood up in front of Democratic members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to advocate for the mandatory inclusion of birth control coverage in health insurance. Republicans on the committee refused to allow her to speak.
The world is shocked by China’s dog meat festival and by videos showing that animals are eaten alive in restaurants in Guangdong. But in that country of 1.3 billon people, a massive shift in ideology is happening. Our friends at PETA Asia are helping millions of people see that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.