The China Folk House project grew out of the Sidwell Friends School China Fieldwork Semester, a program which had ran for five years (2014 – 2018) that took students to Yunnan Province, China, for an integrated semester of experiential learning based at the Linden Center in Xizhou.
In May 2020, a team of artists, activists, folklorists, and people who lost loved ones to Covid-19 came together to make monthly memorial sites in New York City to remember victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. They continued installing memorials around New York City every month during the summer of 2020.
In the 1970s, Jaime Lerner, the former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, transformed six blocks of the main downtown shopping street into a pedestrian zone in 1972, despite fierce objections from the merchants. He quickly accomplished this change in just three days by installing paving, lighting, planters, and furniture. The once-resistant merchants were impressed by the increase in their business and soon demanded an expansion of the traffic-free district.
"This project took aim at a public relations campaign produced by The Union Square Partnership, a local Business Improvement District (BID) attempting to privatize the north end of NYC’s Union Square park and install a high-end celebrity chef restaurant. They hosted historical walking tours of the park for decision-makers, as a means of getting buy-in for their development initiative.
‘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.
Located in Thomas Paine Plaza, across the street from City Hall, Hank Willis Thomas’s All Power to All People was a public art intervention that dealt with racial identity and representation in Philadelphia.
The project provides somatic rituals to solve the problems of creative makers, offering specific somatic instructions for how to deal with breaks in (or lack of) creativity. Rituals available as a live, interactive performance and as limited-edition chapbooks, and broaden an understanding of creative “results,” “ends and means,” and the idea of a muse/magic as relates to creative labour.
"a dinner cooked by six indigenous chefs, members of tribes from around North America, who are meeting together for the first time this week to launch a new indigenous activist group, called the I-Collective. Thursday’s dinner will be at Dimes, on Canal Street, and it will follow a dinner tonight for New York City’s local Native American community at the American Indian Community House, on Eldridge Street.
Whose job is it to create a city? Our intention is to jumpstart a new profession that can re-invent and negotiate the complex mix that encompasses a city. We have defined a radical new occupation to regenerate, pioneer, and sustain the future urban realm. These innovative multi-disciplinarian advocates are called Urbaneers. Their immense task is to manifest and facilitate the next expression of city across the globe.
UNLESS by Stephanie Cardon is a vibrant floor-to-ceiling installation that fills the main entryway of Boston’s landmark Prudential Center. Commissioned by Boston Properties and curated and produced by Now + There, UNLESS explores sustainability, climate justice, and how taking action together can create positive change.
In Hong Kong in 2014 the song Raise Your Umbrella by Denise Ho and Anthong Wong became an anthem for the pro-democracy movement known as the Umbrella Revolution. The song was written after police fired tear gas into the crowds when protestors filled the streets.
In response to white gentrifiers trying to silence go-go music on the corners of Florida Avenue and 7th Avenue, activists and D.C. residents poured into the streets by blasting go-go music and celebrating its rich history within the city. For those unfamiliar, go-go music is at the heart of D.C. culture and features live bands playing covers of, and sometimes original, music with all different types of drums and other percussion instruments.
The Bed-Stuy Aquarium (also known as the Hancock Street Bed-Stuy Aquarium) is a makeshift goldfish pond located on a sidewalk in the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City. The pond, originally formed by a puddle from a leaky fire hydrant, garnered attention from locals and the press beginning at the time of its creation in August 2024.
Artist: Félix González-Torres
Media: Candies in variously coloured wrappers, endless supply, ideal weight of 175 lb
Date & Location: 1991
Where can I find this item?: Art Institute of Chicago, Contemporary Art, Gallery 293
Source: Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons)
Project Row Houses (PRH) is a neighborhood-based nonprofit art and cultural organization in Houston’s Northern Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African-American communities. PRH began in 1993 as a result of discussions among African-American artists who wanted to establish a positive, creative presence in their own community.
Beijing-based artist Liu Yi is working on a series of black-and-white portraits he knows will never be shown in a Chinese gallery. His varied subjects — men and women, young and old, smiling and pensive — have one thing in common: They are Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest repressive Chinese rule.
In March 1939, a 23-year-old Billie Holiday walked up to the mic at West 4th's Cafe Society in New York City to sing her final song of the night. Per her request, the waiters stopped serving and the room went completely black, save for a spotlight on her face.
Trampoline House is a user-driven refugee justice community center located in the center of Copenhagen, where refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants can meet with Danish citizens and other residents of Denmark and share experiences, learn from one another, and work to create a more just and sustainable refugee and asylum policy.
Nestled on the banks of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, Santa Catarina Palopó is a small town brimming with vibrant colors and stunning natural views. Despite its natural beauty and cultural heritage, the community struggled with economic development and poverty for years until they had the opportunity to harness the power of art and transform the town.
In June 2002, the Israeli Government decided to construct a physical barrier separating Israel and the West Bank. The declared purpose of this (as yet unfinished) 709 kilometers long barrier—which came to be known as Gader Ha’hafrada (The Separation Wall)—was to prevent the entry of Palestinian terrorists from the occupied territories into Israel in order to protect Israeli citizens.
This was a protest posted on Change.org in response to NYU's forced eviction deadline on students living in on-campus housing.
The following was the information posted on the site:
We, the undergraduate student body of New York University, strongly urge NYU to rescind the call for students to evacuate NYU residence halls before March 22nd.
Time as currency is an interesting economic model related to artistic practice.
According to the creators of Time/Bank, Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle, the project "is a tool by which people or a group of people can create an alternative economic model where they exchange their time and skills, rather than acquire goods and services through the use of money or any other state-backed value."