Projects tagged "Labor"

Maleteros
Practitioner:
Mark Bradford
Date:
Jan 1 2005
Malteros are the porters who transport luggage and goods between the border of the US and Mexico. Working with a group of maleteros in 2005, artist Mark Bradford collaborated on a system of maps and signs that placed the marginalized work of the unofficial maleteros alongside that of the sanctioned labor of policemen and taxi drivers.
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Crafted in Istanbul
Practitioner:
Bilal Yilmaz, Seda Erdural, Baris Gumustas
Date:
Jan 1 2014
Craftsmanship in Istanbul is under the danger of extinction with all the knowledge accumulated with generations of masters and apprentices. After visiting some workshops in the city, craftsmen shared with the initiators how their condition and businesses have changed since they started working.
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Fit For Work
Practitioner:
Void One
Date:
Jan 1 2018
Graffiti art is particularly viewed as a powerful form of social protest, and the (illegal) act of defacing can be as important as the message itself. Artist Void One has been arrested on numerous occasions for his politically-charged interventions. “I didn’t set out to make political art but art is a platform where I can vent my frustrations” – Void One.
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A Presidential Parody
Practitioner:
A Presidential Parody, Maia Lorian, Abe Lincoln Jr.
Date:
Nov 19 2018
NEW YORK, Ny., Nov 19, 2018 - Two artists, Actress/Creator/Native New Yorker Maia Lorian and collaborator veteran NYC Street Artist Abe Lincoln Jr. bring to you “A Presidential Parody.” In a nation that seems to place higher value on the American dollar over the American life, the artists felt it was time to release an ad campaign that reflects Trump’s “all American” values.
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Zhang Huan, To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond
Practitioner:
Zhuang Huan, some laborers, fishermen, construction workers
Date:
Sep 1 1997
Zhuang Huan invited more than 40 men - laborers, fishermen, construction workers––who had recently migrated to Beijing from other areas of China to participate. Zhang Huan said, “In order to find these workers, I visited many of the shacks where they live.”
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Work Ideology
Practitioner:
Madison Liao
Date:
Apr 15 2022
Work ideology centers around sustainable work. Through fifteen interviews, workers and prospective workers were interviewed about their experiences with work and the job search. Those interviews are analyzed and compiled on work ideology. However, work ideology goes further than showcasing the interview results, it allows for anonymous responses to be entered as well, expanding the research’s accessibility to every worker.
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Horrible bosses: masked activists publicly shame businesses in Bologna
Practitioner:
Il Padrone di Merda
Date:
Oct 1 2019
On a warm summer afternoon in the Italian city of Bologna, a group of around 15 young people march through the crowded city centre to a high-end pastry shop in Strada Maggiore.
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Ace Bank
Practitioner:
Liat Berdugo
Date:
Oct 1 2006
ACE Bank was a hoax bank developed as part of a bigger campaign by Netwerk Vlaanderen, a Belgian organization concerned with banks’ responsibilities for what they invest in. ACE bank was an elaborate deception, with a headquarters in central Brussels, parodying other banks. It claimed to be investigating whether there was a market for its special way of doing business.
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@muchachafanzine
Practitioner:
muchachafanzine
Date:
Jan 1 2011
The user muchachafanzine on instagram is an activist who writes a "decolonial native xicana feminist fanzine". They are an online activist and they spread their message through their page, the zine, and through merchandise. Daisy Salinas began Muchacha Fanzine as a feminist punk zine in 2011. Over the years, Muchacha has grown into a larger, submission-based compilation of work by marginalized voices from around the world.
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Can’t Help Myself
Practitioner:
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Date:
Dec 29 2016
In 2016, the Guggenheim Museum commissioned its very first robotic artwork called Can’t Help Myself (Wannmann, 2016). The artwork is created by two of China’s most controversial artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu and can be described as a robotic arm that has one specific, life-long duty: to prevent the deep-red, bloodlike liquid, which constantly oozes outwards, from straying too far (Weng, n.d.).
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Conquest
Practitioner:
Pope.L
Date:
Sep 21 2019
Conquest is a compelling new collective performance conceived by acclaimed artist Pope.L (b. Newark, 1955). It is inspired by his iconic solo crawls, where the artist dragged himself across a number of different urban landscapes. Navigating the streets and parks of Downtown Manhattan, Conquest extends this irreverent and provocative forty-year tradition of public performance with an ambitious group crawl involving over 140 volunteers.
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Amazon May Day Strike
Practitioner:
Amazon Employees
Date:
May 1 2020
Essential workers at major companies like Amazon, Instacart, and Target across the United States on Friday protested for better safety protections, working conditions, and pay during the coronavirus pandemic.
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Protesters Unfurl Three-Story Banner
Practitioner:
G.U.L.F.
Date:
Nov 5 2014
A thirty-nine-foot banner was unfurled in the rotunda of a sparsely-attended Guggenheim Museum this evening, the latest action carried out by the Gulf Ultra Luxury Front (G.U.L.F.) activist group. Decrying labor abuse at the museum’s planned Abu Dhabi outpost, the banner announced the forthcoming “Countdown” campaign by Gulf Labor, the larger collective of artists and activists of which G.U.L.F. is an offshoot.
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UNLESS
Practitioner:
Stephanie Cardon and others
Date:
Sep 19 2018
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.
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May Day Occupation at Guggenheim
Practitioner:
Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction
Date:
May 1 2015
At noon today, a group of artists and activists including members of the Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (known as G.U.L.F.) unfurled a large parachute in the atrium of the Guggenheim Museum, demanding to meet with a member of the institution’s board of trustees to discuss the labor conditions at its Abu Dhabi site.
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Calling Me a Hero Only Makes You Feel Better
Practitioner:
Grocery Store Workers, Essential Workers, Front Line Workers
Date:
Apr 18 2020
Working in a grocery store has earned me and my co-workers a temporary status. After years of being overlooked, we suddenly feel a sense of responsibility, solidarity, and pride. On a private Facebook group page for my company, Trader Joe’s, one employee from Washington State posted a picture of a company-issued work shirt hanging from the ceiling of the store. A sign attached to the shirt read not all heroes wear scrubs.
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Social change through music
Practitioner:
Jose Antonio Abreu
Date:
Jan 1 1975
El Sistema, also known as The National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestra and Choir, was established in Venezuela in 1975 by José Antonio Abreu, a Venezuelan educator, musician and activist. The music education program operates within the voluntary sector and is funded publicly.
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The Hong Kong Artist Who Got Fired From McDonald’s
Practitioner:
Luke Ching
Date:
Feb 22 2025
On a recent eight-hour shift at a McDonald’s in Hong Kong, Luke Ching, 52, wiped tables, cleared trays of half-eaten fries, emptied cups of soda and milk tea and lugged bulging trash bags to the dumpster. For him, the main goal of the part-time work was not making ends meet. It was research for his main pursuit: using art to advocate for better treatment of people in menial jobs in a city with one of the widest income gaps in the world.
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La Casa Invisible Protests Against Gentrification
Practitioner:
La Casa Invisible
Date:
Dec 3 2002
La Casa Invisible project was started in 2007 in Malaga, Spain, when a group of socially involved participants squatted in a run-down building, aiming to eventually claim the legal rights to the property (Moor & Smart, 2016). The space was opened to local artists and creators, quickly becoming a hub for free local music, performances, and seminars as well as creating an important meeting space for social groups (Moor & Smart, 2016).
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Sunflower Seeds by Ai Weiwei
Practitioner:
Ai Weiwei
Date:
Oct 12 2010
Ai Weiwei's installation Sunflower Seeds is a profound commentary on both historical and contemporary issues through the medium of art. First exhibited at Tate Modern in London from October 12, 2010, to May 2, 2011, the work features an astonishing one hundred million handcrafted porcelain sunflower seeds, spread across the gallery's 1,000 square meter Turbine Hall to a depth of ten centimeters.
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Dying to Breathe: The Unseen Cost of Gold Mining
Practitioner:
Sim Chi Yin
Date:
May 15 2015
Photographer Sim Chi Yin spent more than three years documenting a Chinese gold miner who is suffering from the deadly lung disease silicosis. Despite the odds, his loving relationship with his wife has kept him alive much longer than anyone expected.
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呼吸之痛 The Pain of Breath
Practitioner:
Date:
Sep 11 2018
Pneumoconiosis has become the most serious occupational disease in China, and the vast majority of sufferers, nearly 6 million, are migrant workers. Because of the long-term inhalation of dust caused by pulmonary fibrosis, they usually breathing if not oxygen machine help, easy to suffocate.
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Design For Freedom Summit Shares Strategies For Removing Modern-Day Slavery From Building And Construction Supply Chain
Practitioner:
Grace Farms Foundation
Date:
Mar 29 2024
Shackles. Cotton. The Big House. Americans tend to think of slavery in terms of chattel slavery. Plantation Slavery. Slavery where human beings are bought, sold, and owned. The kind outlawed in the United States by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Slavery as a relic of the 19th Century. “Six of us lived, worked, slept in a 10-by-10 (foot) room without a bed, bathroom, or clean water,” Nasreen Sheikh remembers.
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The Great Migration Series
Practitioner:
Jacob Lawrence
Date:
May 12 1941
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."
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A Haunting Artistic Tribute to Garment Workers Killed in Bangladesh and the US
Practitioner:
Artist Rachel Breen, Poet Alison Morse
Date:
Apr 1 2018
NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Exactly 1,281 white garments hang from the ceiling of the Perlman Teaching Museum’s Braucher Gallery. The collared shirts, knit sweaters, tights, and other items of clothing glow with an eerie luminosity.
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