Projects tagged "Politics & Government"

‘Reopen NY’ protesters busted outside New York City Hall
Practitioner:
Reopen NY
Date:
May 10 2020
Nine protesters pushing for the Empire State to reopen from its coronavirus lockdown were busted Saturday afternoon outside City Hall, for not obeying social distancing guidelines, sources told The Post. The nine were among about 20 who rallied at Park Row and Spruce Street, holding signs that read, “Not Afraid to Fight” and “Reopen NY” sources said. Some of the protesters were not wearing a mask or face covering, a witness said.
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Montreal's 'casseroles' cook up a storm over Quebec's anti-protest law
Practitioner:
Casseroles
Date:
May 18 2012
"Every night, at 8pm, during 15 minutes, take a casserole or any object that makes some noise and bang it with all the wrath that Bill 78 inspires you!" Citizens in Quebec adopted 'cacerolazo,' a form of popular protest which consists of a group of people making noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils in order to call for attention.
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Truisms
Practitioner:
Jenny Holzer
Date:
Jul 5 1978
Holzer's Truisms have become part of the public domain, displayed in storefronts, on outdoor walls and billboards, and in digital displays in museums, galleries, and other public places, such as Times Square in New York. Multitudes of people have seen them, read them, laughed at them, and been provoked by them. That is precisely the artist's goal.
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Kissing Doesn’t Kill and other projects
Practitioner:
Gran Fury
Date:
Jan 1 1989
Gran Fury was an AIDS activist artist collective from New York City consisting of 11 members, all artists - but action, not art, was the aim of the collective. Gran Fury member Loring McAlpin described the collective's mass-market ambition to “...fight for attention as hard as Coca-Cola fights for attention.”
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8
45 Tweets
Practitioner:
Wonkles
Date:
Apr 25 2017
I have been composing and singing a selection of our President's tweets. I have two goals for this ongoing project. One is to laugh which helps all of us deal with the high anxiety of our times. The second is to shine new light on the absurd, troubled and baffling mind of our 45th President. There’s something utterly satisfying when I hear his words sung in an earnest lilting voice. I hope it compels you to think and listen in a whole new way.
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3
Study of Perspective (& Stools)
Practitioner:
Ai Weiwei
Date:
Jan 1 2014
The son of an exiled political dissident, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s work is inherently political. Since 1995 Ai Weiwei has been traveling the world, photographing himself flipping off iconic monuments of power in his Study of Perspective series.
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3
Occupation of Alcatraz Island
Practitioner:
Native American Activists
Date:
Nov 20 1969
The beacon flashed incessantly. On. Off. On again. Like some sort of traffic light gone crazy, it pierced the thick nighttime mist hovering over San Francisco Bay. The light sent a message five miles across the dark waters from Ghirardelli Square to Alcatraz Island. There, cheers erupted as the light flashed the words, "Go Indians!"
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4
Davey Drumpf, Presidential Cousin-At-Large
Practitioner:
Dave Lippman
Date:
Dec 23 2016
A new series of video commentaries with Davey Drumpf, The Donald's long-lost third cousin, twice removed. His views are several degrees to the Left of the Don's. First installment: Co-housing vs. Weaponized Xenophobia.
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3
Tea Party for Obama
Practitioner:
Brainstone
Date:
Jan 14 2012
With the aim to confuse and 'stir up the shit', Brainstone built and launched a website that looked like the beloved Tea Party had given up on its right-wing clowns and finally supported Obama. The site drew lots of twitter, blogger. social media and news site reaction. Members of Brainstone were frequently requested to conduct interviews and spent tons of hours responding to emails.
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Paint, Poems and Protest Anthems: Myanmar’s Coup Inspires the Art of Defiance
Practitioner:
Artists of Myanmar
Date:
Jan 17 2021
Most nights since a coup returned Myanmar to military rule on Feb. 1, a spectral symbol of protest has glowed on a mildewed side of a building. Where the next illumination will appear in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, is a mystery. But, suddenly, a projected image appears in the dark. Three fingers raised in a rebellious pose. A dove of peace. The smiling face of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose government was ousted in the army putsch.
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In Mexico City, Comedians Punish Society’s Scofflaws With Humiliation
Practitioner:
Supercívicos
Date:
Mar 3 2016
Acting on a tip from a disgruntled neighbor, two comedians dressed as drag queens confronted parking officers in broad daylight. The pair wanted to know why the officers, who so ruthlessly enforced parking limits, had never so much as given a warning to the local fruit salesman, whose battered Ford Explorer sat illegally parked all day, every day, in the upper-class neighborhood of Polanco.
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5
Sneaking the Jews out of Denmark
Practitioner:
Denmark
Date:
Sep 15 1943
In September 1943, the Nazis prepared for the deportation of all Danish Jews to the concentration camps and death. But Georg Duckwitz, a German diplomat with a conscience, deliberately leaked the plans for the roundup, which was due to begin on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Armed with the information from Duckwitz, Danes swung into action.
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Ex-Con Shareholder Goes After World's Biggest Prison Corporations
Practitioner:
Alex Friedmann
Date:
May 10 2012
From Mother JonesBy James RidgewayTomorrow, at the annual meeting of Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company,
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Las Carpetas
Practitioner:
CHRISTOPHER GREGORY-RIVERA
Date:
Jan 14 2021
"Las Carpetas looks at the bureaucratic residue of a 40-year-long secret surveillance program that aimed to destroy the Puerto Rican Independence Movement. Through still-lives, archival appropriation, and investigation, Christopher Gregory-Rivera provides a counter-history to the way many understand this period of time and its aftermath.
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How Protest Art Is Helping Fuel the Historic Demonstrations Erupting Across China
Practitioner:
Chinese art students
Date:
Nov 28 2022
Students at art colleges across China are taking a strong stance in the midst of the largest wave of protests to have gripped the country since 1989. As demonstrations against the government’s strict Covid-19 policies erupted across the country over the weekend, students rallied on campuses to create protest art and graffiti.
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4
The Tragic Story Behind Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit"
Practitioner:
Billie Holiday
Date:
Apr 15 1937
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.
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Step Into My Shoes And Sit In My Seat
Practitioner:
Participants of the Creativity and Change course Cork City
Date:
Mar 11 2017
Topic: Displaced people Concept: Explore and communicate some of the issues around displacement in a global, European and Irish context. Date of action: 11th March 2.30 to 4.20 pm Place: Emmett Place, Cork City, Ireland
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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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For China’s Halloween of Discontent, He Went as a Surveillance Camera
Practitioner:
Wenxin Fan, Rachel Liang, Shen Lu, WSJ
Date:
Nov 1 2023
Several nights of Halloween celebration in Shanghai provided a vivid, if indirect, commentary this week on the malaise gripping the world’s second-largest economy.
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Santiago Sierra will soak British flag in blood of colonised peoples
Practitioner:
Santiago Sierra
Date:
Mar 19 2021
The Spanish artist Santiago Sierra is planning to immerse a British flag in blood donated by indigenous peoples from countries colonised by the British Empire. The resulting artwork, titled Union Flag, is intended to be an “acknowledgement of the pain and destruction colonialism has caused First Nations peoples, devastating entire cultures and civilisations,” the artist said in a statement.
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‘RBG’ documentary reveals how Ruth Bader Ginsburg became a meme — and why that’s so surprising
Practitioner:
Betsy West and Julie Cohen
Date:
May 4 2018
The Ginsburg without photoshopped sunglasses and a crown fueled a revolution with lawsuits instead of protests. She believed in incremental progress instead of bold gestures. She was projected to be a conciliator on the court, not its preeminent liberal dissenter. Now, “everyone wants to take a picture with me.”
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The People v Barack Obama
Practitioner:
Law Office of Jason Flores-Williams
Date:
Mar 15 2013
I am a federal criminal defense attorney and have written a formal legal brief in response to the Obama Administration's White Paper attempting to justify the killing of American citizens without due process. The brief is a new form fusion of law and nihilistic commentary about the American condition. I will be delivering the brief with others to the Department of Justice and posting at the White House on March 15.
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Book Burning Party - Troy Library
Practitioner:
Leo Burnett
Date:
May 8 2012
Troy, Michigan couldn't afford to keep its library open, so it scheduled a vote for a tax increase. A strong anti-tax group waged a dominating campaign against it. Posing as a political group, an outside advertising agency posted signs around town that said, "Vote to close Troy library Aug 2, book burning party Aug 5." We invited everyone to our Facebook page, adding Twitter, Foursquare, want ads, flyers and more to drive engagement.
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In her Shoes
Practitioner:
Creativity and Change - Reproductive Rights Group
Date:
Apr 28 2018
‘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.
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Who killed Rodrigo Rosenberg?
Practitioner:
Rodrigo Rosenberg and Guatemalan civilians
Date:
May 2 2009
In May of 2009 lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg was murdered in Guatemla City. A video was released of Rosenberg directed to the Guatemalan public. If you are watching this, he said, I have been murdered by the president Alvaro Colom. The video caused an uproar and sparked protests throughout the city.
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