Projects tagged "Corporate Power"

Dirty Money in Art & Big Pharma
Practitioner:
Nan Goldin & P.A.I.N.
Date:
Jul 20 2018
Between 1995 and 2017 the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin brought in $35 billion USD in revenue for Purdue Pharma, most of which went directly into the hands of the Sackler family.
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Man at the Crossroads
Practitioner:
Diego Rivera
Date:
Feb 19 1934
In 1932, Rivera was commissioned by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and her husband John D. Rockefeller Jr. to paint a mural for the lobby of Rockefeller Center. Rivera kept the original, approved plan for the two outer sides of the mural but changed the inner panel to include a critique capitalism. This inner panel ultimately included: Lenin, prostitutes, and the upper class drinking alcohol and covered in signs of venereal disease.
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Money Shouldn't Talk Silent Vigils & Marches
Practitioner:
MicCheck Wall Street
Date:
Jan 14 2012
Beginning in January 2012, MicCheckWallSt, a subsidiary of Seattle's Occupy Wall Street group, began performing a series of silent vigils and marches throughout shopping areas and in front of banks in various Seattle neighborhoods. Images are from the first silent vigil outside of Westlake shopping center. Participants glued dollar bills to the outside of their mouths. Bills included statements such as:
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Mercury Poisoning by Unilever in Kodaikanal
Practitioner:
Jhatkaa
Date:
Jul 30 2015
Global corporation Unilever dumped toxic and contaminated waste behind its thermometer factory located in Kodaikanal, a city in the South Indian state Tamil Nadu. In 2001, once word spread about this breach in environmental precautions, Unilever closed its factory. However, it is yet to adequately compensate its workers, many of whom suffered mercury poisoning. The corporation has also yet to clean up its mess and remediate the land.
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MAY DAY MARCH- "TRUMP UNWANTED"
Practitioner:
MAY DAY MARCH Community
Date:
May 1 2016
GAME ON! Its gonna be a good Spring!" Connie Bacon. Activists and the politically aware will march with the message that Donald Trump and his beliefs are "UNWANTED".
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Retirement dinner turned into hilarious protest
Practitioner:
UK Uncut
Date:
Sep 23 2012
Activists gate-crashed a retirement dinner for outgoing HMRC boss Dave Hartnett in Oxford, presenting him with flowers and a fake award for allowing large companies to avoid paying tax.
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Student flash mobs in Thailand
Practitioner:
students
Date:
Sep 20 2020
"Thai artists and art students are on the frontline of their country’s swelling pro-democracy movement, calling for reforms of Thailand’s military-backed government, and breaking both taboo and national law to criticise the nation’s monarchy.
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This area will be photographed
Practitioner:
Laura Napier
Date:
Oct 11 2015
"This area will be photographed" is a public performance of implied photographic consent, inspired by Google's street view and satellite surveillance. Posted signs and handbills alerted the public present in Union Square, New York, NY that a photograph would be taken of the area at a precise time.
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"Human Cost" Oily Protest at the Tate
Practitioner:
Liberate Tate
Date:
Apr 20 2011
On the one-year anniversary of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, artist-activists at Liberate Tate staged a guerrilla performance in the Tate Britain galleries to highlight the museum's ties to BP.
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Federal Trade Commission demands Elon Musk 'identify all journalists' who had access to Twitter Files
Practitioner:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Date:
Mar 7 2023
he Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is demanding Elon Musk turn over internal Twitter documents, including a list of the journalists who were behind the viral "Twitter Files." The Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday about more than a dozen letters the FTC sent to Twitter and its legal counsel as part of a probe looking into Musk's 2022 takeover of the tech giant.
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Carlos Slim Laugh Machine
Practitioner:
new yorkers, The Yes Men
Date:
May 9 2013
Inspired by the Laughing Farmers of Karnataka, protesters in New York make Carlos Slim's visit to New York uncomfortable while he appears on a "Live From NYPL" program. This excellent video summarizes the action.
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GM Announces Climate Commitment
Practitioner:
Ailie Rutherford
Date:
Nov 29 2006
Concerned Citizens impersonated LA Autoshow hosts, interrupting a keynote speech from the General Motors' CEO. They present a pledge on behalf of GM, committing in writing to becoming an leader in fuel efficiency, and to follow through on all the environmental rhetoric promised in speech. The real CEO refuses.
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Hong Kong Apple Store met with protest over supply chain violations on iPhone 6 launch day
Practitioner:
SACOM
Date:
Sep 3 2015
Apple implemented improved reservation procedures and policies for employees dealing with the iPhone 6 launch at retail stores on September 19th, 2014, but the launch at the company’s Hong Kong store hadn't gone quite as smooth as elsewhere. The store was hit by protesters from the Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) and also required police to help disperse customers that had waited in line without reservations.
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“up yours” share trading
Practitioner:
James Gubb
Date:
Nov 9 2017
JAMES GUBB was finishing off the knuckles when the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) shut him down. Trading single shares between two accounts, Mr Gubb had managed to “draw” the image of a fist with an upright middle finger onto the share-price chart for Oakbay Resources and Energy Limited, a company controlled by the Gupta brothers, cronies of President Jacob Zuma, that is at the centre of allegations of “state capture” in South Africa.
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Big Tech CEOs Become 7ft Capitol Rioters
Practitioner:
Sum Of Us
Date:
Mar 25 2021
As tech leaders faced tough questions from Congress, SumOfUs, an 18 million member advocacy organization, was right outside with a larger-than-life installation of the January 6th Capitol riot that shows the role Big Tech played in sparking the insurrection.
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The end of the world as we know it !
Practitioner:
citizen 68585444
Date:
Mar 8 2013
Preparing for the Corporate take over of the Pacific Rim. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LW-TEHIScvw
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</3 Less than Three and Up Srei: Art and the Cambodian Worker Struggle
Practitioner:
Kat Eng
Date:
Jan 17 2014
On a freezing Friday in January, Khmer-American artist Kat Eng sits in front of retail giant H&M’s Time Square store working on a manual sewing machine. For eight hours, Eng stitches together U.S. dollar bills while wearing a surgical mask and bloodstained shirt. Her performance “</3 Less Than Three” protests the way fast fashion and consumer culture creates oppressive conditions for Khmer workers.
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Candid Call Centre
Practitioner:
Angel Chen
Date:
Mar 29 2012
From March 29 to April 28, 2012, artist Angel Chen transformed Toronto's Whippersnapper Gallery into a pop-up call centre to field questions on the financial crisis. Phone lines were manned by passers-by, volunteers and guest operators, all of whom solicited callers for discussion about the current economic climate.
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Activism Within All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Practitioner:
Nan Goldin & Laura Poitras
Date:
Nov 23 2023
The new Oscar-nominated documentary, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, focuses on world-famous photographer Nan Goldin, her life, her work, and the protests she led at museums that accepted funding from the Sackler family. Their company, Purdue Pharma, manufactured and unscrupulously marketed OxyContin. We'll talk with Goldin and director Laura Poitras.
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Occu-bot
Practitioner:
Taeyoon Choi
Date:
Dec 21 2011
Occu-bot can protest in places that human civil disobedience is not allowed, and it can also replace human protesters.
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Clowns Arrested in Near-Successful Attack on Wall Street Bull
Practitioner:
The Yes Men
Date:
Nov 9 2011
The incident began when two clowns, Hannah Morgan and Louis Jargow, scaled the steel barricades protecting the landmark. The clowns began spanking and climbing the beast, traditional ways of coaxing a bull into anger in preparation for a Castilian corrida, or bullfight.
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ANZ is Out of Order Campaign - Grassroots action against ANZ Bank in Australia
Practitioner:
Katso, Climate Change Activists
Date:
Feb 6 2013
On the 6th February 2013, 40 activists across 6 states plastered 110 ANZ ATMs with 'Out of Order' notices, sharing them on social media the following day. The objective was to use a hoax style action to exploit mainstream media sensitivity around ANZ Bank's unethical funding of fossil fuel projects that had been generated by Jonathan Moylan's Whitehaven Hoax a week earlier.
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untitled (Long Live the Real King)
Practitioner:
Unknown
Date:
Feb 24 2025
An A.I. generated video of Donald Trump sucking Elon Musk's toes was broadcast at the Department of Housing and Development headquarters in DC in February of 2025. As an actual art piece, we can debate if the video itself is art. However, the caption, subject matter of the fake video, and chosen location to broadcast is definitely a strategic work of creative activism. From the New York Times:
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Artist Relocates Abandoned Detroit Home
Practitioner:
Ryan Mendoza
Date:
Feb 26 2016
As art projects go, it's pretty audacious.
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Taco Bell Boycott
Practitioner:
Coalition of Imolakee Workers
Date:
Jan 1 2001
For years, workers in Florida’s tomato fields have endured poverty wages and terrible working conditions. In 1993, a small, community-based organization called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) formed to demand an end to these unfair labor practices.
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