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.
In Oakland, artists created murals and installations to honor activist Angela Davis, celebrating her legacy in fighting for racial and gender justice. These public artworks inspire new generations to continue the struggle for social change.
❗❗PRIDE REQUIRES ACTION❗❗
Celebrating Pride?
What better way to uplift LGBTQ people’s lives than by joining our campaign to #EndTransDetention?
Honor the legacy of Pride by taking action until all of us are free.
Sign here & share with 3 friends:
https://www.endtransdetentions.org/petition
Hair Nah (https://hairnah.com/) is a game created by Momo Pixel, a Black woman who wanted to represent how it feels for people to touch her hair without consent. The game is fun but also impactful, especially with the mechanic of "getting tired" of smacking away hands.
When Fred Wilson did an installation at the Maryland Historical Society in 1992, he shook up the museum world. Co-sponsored by the historical society and the Contemporary Museum, Mining the Museum did not involve artwork made by the artist; rather, it involved reinstalling items from the historical society's collection in such a way as to make us reconsider them.
"SOA Cycle, and what it later became, which is called the Democracy Cycle, is a group of seven large works that approach the question of democracy. What is democracy? How is it constructed? How is it implemented? Is it something that is to be thought of in relation to its political influence? Or is it something that plays out in terms of cultural and social, and even emotional terms, for instance?
In Portland, Ore., organizers of the “Reparations Happy Hour” invited black, brown and indigenous people to a bar and handed them $10 bills as they arrived, a small but symbolic gift mostly funded by white people who were asked not to attend.
The Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network is a grassroots movement and campaign to prevent the displacement of low-to-middle income people, elders, families and mom-and-pop businesses from Brooklyn. They say, “Not 1 more person displaced! Not 1 more luxury development, until we have affordable housing for all!”
It all started a few months ago, when the Minneapolis Institute of Art got a phone call from Valerie Castile.
Castile is the mother of Philando Castile, the 32-year-old black man who was shot and killed by a police officer in 2016. Valerie Castile has since founded the Philando Castile Relief Foundation, which helps victims of gun violence.
The story of an artist. Laolu Senbanjo grew up surrounded by the culture and mythology of the Yoruba, an ethnic group from the southwest of Nigeria, but he never imagined how it would influence the artist he is today. After a career as a human rights attorney, Senbanjo moved to New York City to pursue art full time. “With my art, I like to tell stories, I like to start a conversation,” says Senbanjo, but life as an artist in New York was tough.
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.
Kwame Brathwaite, the photographer and activist whose work gave a visual identity to the “Black is Beautiful” movement, died on April 1. He was 85.
The news was shared by his son, Kwame Brathwaite, Jr., in an Instagram post. “I am deeply saddened to share that my Baba, the patriarch of our family, our rock and my hero has transitioned,” Brathwaite, Jr. wrote. “Thank you for your love and support during this difficult time.”
The Mirror Casket project is a sculpture, performance, and visual call to action designed and orchestrated by a collaborative of St. Louis community artists in response to the shooting death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, MO.
On the opening day of the Spring/Summer 2011's season of Mercedes Benz's New York Fashion Week, former fashion editor, speaker, and fashion activist Michaela Angela Davis led a protest of approximately 20 black women, dressed in black suits, carrying signs with the names of every fashion editor in the 40 year history of African American fashion and lifestyle magazine, Essence Magazine.
Maryland Hall, in partnership with the Banneker Douglass Museum and Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, invited Maryland-based Black artists, whose work encapsulates activism and social justice and using the creative process to educate their audiences about diversity, equity and inclusion to send proposals to take one of six 5 ft.
Activists fighting coronavirus-driven hate crimes are rallying on social media to turn masks into a symbol, rather than a target in racist attacks
Jeff Elder Apr 6, 2020, 2:03 PM
Activists against COVID-19-related hate crimes are leading a social media campaign using images of people in masks to fight back against attacks on Asian-Americans, which Congress and the FBI say are increasing.
An erroneous tip called into law enforcement authorities in 2002 subjected Hasan Elahi to an intensive investigation by the FBI and after undergoing months of interrogations, he was finally cleared of suspicions. After this harrowing experience, Elahi conceived “Tracking Transience” and opened just about every aspect of his life to the public.
Mural artists add color and flavor on 800 South in the Granary District of downtown Salt Lake City. There’s an old-fashioned bar on the side of a locally-owned brewery, and a Southern Utah landscape on another building. Down the street, on the south corner of 800 South and 300 West, there’s a new mural that’s far more potent.
Logic, a rapper known to incorporate meaningful messages with his music, recently released his newest track, “1-800-273-8255.” Covering topics of depression and suicide, the song and its subsequent music video uses the phone number of a national suicide hotline as its title.
This satirical website ridicules hipster racism and black tokenism, using two fictional white characters - Sally and Johnny - who have many black friends. The webpage is fairly simple and features fictional testimonies by black people celebrating the stereotypes and innocuous, but prejudiced behavior of Sally and Johnny. There is also a section of submitted testimonies and hate mail/fanmail.
Courtoom sketches were, for many cases, the only glimpses into high profile trails that captivated the nation. Now, over 200 of these sketches by artists will be in the Library of Congress, ranging from cases such as The Rodney King trial, the Watergate scandal, and the Allen v. Farrow custody battle. While the Nation's Library will be collecting these sketches for their historic value, many seek to buy the "art" as an investment.
ODBK is an activist organization that aims to create a more equal, diverse, inclusive, transparent and democratic art world. ODBK seeks to do this by diversify and increase the number of people who understand and engage with contemporary art.
Imagine if back in the 1960s, creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee had found inspiration for The Avengers in Yoruba mythology. Instead of Iron Man, we'd have the warrior Oxaguiã. Taking the place of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Norse god Thor would be the equally strong and black-skinned Xangô, the ruler of justice — who also happens to carry a hammer.