At ‘Arcadia Earth,’ Dazzle Illuminates Danger
Using augmented reality, virtual reality and installations of light and art, the creators of this pop-up exhibition hope to inspire action on climate change.
By Laurel Graeber
Oct. 23, 2019
The creators of “Arcadia Earth” want to awaken your conscience. But they also plan to make that guilt trip extraordinarily fun.
‘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’.
Street artist, graphic designer, and activist Shepard Fairey created this visionary portrait of then Senator Barack Obama in 2008 as a form of grassroots activism to support Obama’s first presidential campaign. Fairey based the work on an Associated Press photograph by Mannie Garcia, which he transformed with his signature high-contrast stencil technique, inspired by the political message and bold graphics of Soviet Socialist Realism.
Sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) used her art to advocate for social change in both the U.S. and her adopted country of Mexico. Much of her work focuses on the experience of African American life and political struggle during the middle of the 20th century. Her posters of well-known activists, including Angela Davis and Malcolm X, were widely circulated at the time.
National Public Radio (NPR):
There's no historical marker outside Jacob Lawrence's childhood home in New York City's Harlem neighborhood.
But Khalil Gibran Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has an idea of what it might say: "Here lived one of the 20th century's most influential visual artists, a man named Jacob Lawrence, who was a child of southern migrants."
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.
As she puts the finishing touches to her habit, Sister Clarita, a Mexican immigrant living in Los Angeles, tells me that there are more than 3,000 LGBT+ nuns around the world. They’re part of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an international network of activists who identify as secular nuns.
"When it comes to the effects of the virus on black lives, the roots run deep.
⠀⠀
This is one of the hardest illustrations I’ve ever done. Not because of the tree - but because of the overwhelming nature of the subject at hand. Seeing headlines like “Blacks are Dying at Higher Rates from Covid-19” SHOOK me!
⠀⠀
Cleve Jones's powerful vision for memorializing those lost to AIDS was realized in October 1987 in Washington D.C. It showcased the artistic contributions of people who'd lost loved ones to the virus from a number of US metropolitan centers. The quilt has continued to grow for the nearly 40 years since. By 1992, the AIDS Memorial Quilt included panels from every state and 28 countries.
If you've been to a Bay Area protest or community event, you've probably seen -- or even met those nuns in whiteface -- The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Devoted to human rights globally and locally, AIDS education, and respect for diversity, this controversial Order of Queer Nuns has long been a staple of San Francisco's cultural fabric. They join host Joseph Pace for the hour.
Guests:
When dancer Sheen Jamaal saw a video of protestors doing the Cupid Shuffle in New Jersey, inspiration struck to do something similar in New York. He immediately called his friend and collaborator Allison “Buttons” Bedell, and the seed for the Dance For George protest was planted.
Bus Regulation: The Musical (2019 – 2023) is a Trilogy of roller-skating Musicals inspired by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Starlight Express’ performed in three of the UK’s biggest post-industrial city-regions – Greater Manchester, Strathclyde and Merseyside – in collaboration wi
In 1988, rap group the N.W.A from Compton, California released their second album, “Straight Outta Compton”. Without any radio play or media coverage, the album still managed to become an underground hit, and the notorious rap group successfully introduced socially conscious gangsta rap into the mainstream.
For Women’s History Month 2024, Hysterical Collective presented: Hysterical: Radical Creativity – the third instalment of the annual charity art exhibition and cultural programme taking place in March each year. Co-founded and curated by Eliza Hatch of Cheer Up Luv and Bee Illustrates, Hysterical is a queer and feminist-led exhibition and event showcase; centred around community, collaboration, and activism.
Celeste Caeiro, who on April 25, 1974, handed out red carnations to soldiers on their way to ending a 40-year right-wing dictatorship in Portugal, a spontaneous patriotic act that gave a largely bloodless coup its name, the Carnation Revolution, and her an enduring appellation, “the Lady of the Carnations,” died on Friday in Lisbon. She was 91.
The 2013 protests in Turkey started on 28 May 2013, initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park. The protests were sparked by outrage at the violent eviction of a sit-in at the park protesting the plan.
Jo’Artis Ratti is sure he looked intimidating to the police officers who were suddenly confronted by his agitated dancing at a California protest Sunday.
“I’m 210 pounds,” said Ratti, 35. “I have tattoos on my neck. I don’t have a passive energy; I’m very enthusiastic. And I know this looks unfamiliar.”
"Amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes around the world, Singapore-based dancewear company Cloud & Victory posted a video on March 18 calling for a stop to the hate against the Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. It features prominent Asian dancers and allies, including former professional dancer Miko Fogarty, The Joffrey Ballet's Jeraldine Mendoza and Boston Ballet's Lia Cirio and Paulina Waski.
On the small island of Teshima in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, Multibasket – No One Wins invites visitors to reconsider competition, collaboration, and the intersection of art and play.
After winning the TED Prize on March 2, 2011, the French-artist JR launched the Inside Out Project, in his first TED Talk. Using his own artistic practice as inspiration, this participatory platform helps individuals and communities to make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces. Through their “Actions,” communities around the world have sparked collaborations and conversations.
One of the defining features of politics in the 21st century has been the way online cultural phenomena can cross over into the “real” world.
Unfortunately, perhaps because the internet seems to bring out the worst in people, those phenomena have largely been, well, awful.
Dozens of moms organized a breastfeeding protest at an Australian mall after nursing mom Luci White was asked to leave the food court.
White says she was finishing up her lunch at Bendigo Marketplace, about 90 minutes outside Melbourne, when her 7-month-old son, Zaydd, started crying for milk. White started nursing him, but other patrons, an older man and a mom of two, started to complain.
"Beginning in 1910, the Mexican Revolution spawned a cultural renaissance, inspiring artists to look inward in search of a specifically Mexican artistic language. This visual vocabulary was designed to transcend the realm of the arts and give a national identity to this population undergoing transition.