At a time when the city of Portland was considering stripping Martin Luther King Jr.'s name off a local street, a covert organization calling itself Group X changed the name of another downtown street to Malcolm X Street in a clandestine overnight action.
The running world will come together for a virtual run on Friday, May 8, to celebrate and honor the life of Ahmaud Arbery, who was reportedly shot and killed while out on a run on February 23.
Three months ago, when New York government officials ordered nonessential businesses closed to slow the spread of coronavirus, high-end retailers sheathed their stores in plywood barriers, as though readying for civil unrest.
Joining art institutes nationally, a film on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre will premiere at the UMass Amherst Arts Center. This is especially important given its will be the 100th anniversary of the tragic event of when "Black Wall Street" was burned to the ground. It is widely known as one of the most violent events, let alone racially charged ones, in US History.
Through their podcast, The Dance Union, Melanie Greene and J. Bouey have been confronting racism in the dance world, and highlighting the experiences of Black artists, since 2018. Their episodes cover a variety of topics and issues, ranging from mental health and sexual harassment to advocating for fair pay.
“The Feminist Zine Fest showcases the work of artists and zine makers of all genders who identify on the feminist spectrum, and whose politics are reflected in their work. For the second consecutive year, Barnard proudly hosts the zine fest, welcoming approximately 40 zine-makers eager to share their work.
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.
Injustice is an interactive VR experience themed around racially motivated police brutality. Guests witness an act of racial discrimination in front of them, forcing them to make moral and ethical decisions on the spot. Injustice is an experience aimed at exploring the emotional impact of VR space vs. traditional film.
Play Safe is a documentary film series created and directed by NYU alum Eddie Einbinder. The film, much of which now appears for free on YouTube, was originally released in 2013 after being filmed between 2011 and 2012. It debuted at the International Harm Reduction conference in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2013.
Eight years after his death, the annual August Wilson Monologue Competition provides high school students from around the country an opportunity to carry on the African-American playwright’s legacy. That legacy includes Pulitzer Prizes for “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson,” two installments of Wilson’s 10-play series set in his hometown of Pittsburgh that examined 20th-century black life through the personal and political struggles of everyday people.
Rohan Zhou-Lee pens a power letter to Asian women, reminding us of our brilliance, heroism, and inherited centuries of Asian woman power.
To any Asian Woman, cis or trans, who might read this:
For FX Harsono, art is activism. Over the past four decades, performance, sculpture, and painting have become his means of nonviolent protest against government autocracy and ethnic strife in Indonesia.
Julie Dillon is a critically acclaimed illustrator, having been nominated and won multiple awards, including two Hugos and a Chesley. Her work often deals with science fiction and fantasy stories, and her work in the field has made her aware of the lack of diversity in this optimistic speculative fiction.
Photo taken on Oct. 15, 2020 shows a "comfort women" statue in Berlin, capital of Germany. The statue was built to commemorate the more than 200,000 girls and women from 14 countries and regions, so-called "comfort women," who were sexually enslaved by the Japanese military during World War II. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi)
In El Paso more than 100 murals have been painted since the mid-1960s. The murals, located throughout the city's various corridors, often depict themes common to Chicano muralism, such as mestizo heritage or social problems, but they also tell unique stories about the "merging of ideas, cultures, and dreams" along the United States-Mexico border.
Howardena Pindell presented her solo exhibition, “Rope/Fire/Water”, her first video in 25 years and a project utilized by the artist since the 1970s that The Shed commissioned and displayed in late 2020 and into early 2021. “Rope/Fire/Water” mines the history of violence against African-Americans and features Pindell’s personal anecdotes and anthropological and historical data related to lynchings and racist attacks in the United States.
In a single hour, Beyoncé's Lemonade re-wrote the textbook definition of what a visual album should look like. The genre-bending music it introduced will define the struggles a generation was enduring in 2016, specifically for black women. The project transcends every definition pop has ever had; blending R&B, contemporary rock, country, reggae, soul and hip-hop in its 12 tracks, occasionally fusing several of these into a single song.
Counterspace is an independent curatorial platform functioning as the first decolonial thinktank mapping cultural activism worldwide. It shapes collectively decolonial toolkits with common tools and resources, and a global directory browsable by continent, praxis, and social construct, as a Beuys-inspired ‘social sculpture’ revisited, and an alternative map of the universe.
Bob and Roberta Smith has been at the forefront of activist art for 2 decades; so who better to ask about how art is responding to these politically bleak times?
Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative is a decentralized network of 24 artists committed to making print and design work that reflects a radical social, environmental, and political stance. With members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds operates both as a unified collaboration of similarly minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods.
"WILD: Act I" is a film demonstrating the power of creativity in constraint. Using moving choreography performed by Elijah Lancaster and vivid imagery displayed on three walls in a mock cell, Jeremy McQueen gives voice to young Black and Brown men caught in the criminal 'justice' system.
Toyi-toyi is a Southern African dance originally from Zimbabwe by Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) forces that has long been used in political protests in South Africa.
Toyi-toyi could begin as the stomping of feet and spontaneous chanting during protests that could include political slogans or songs, either improvised or previously created. Some sources claim that South Africans learned it from Zimbabweans.
Over the winter break, I was actually able to see the recently re-decorated Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia. After the height of the Black Lives Matter Protests over the past summer, it couldn’t be torn down, but it was fully wrapped with protest art. All phrases and slogans (such as Black Trans Lives Matter, ACAB, Etc.) were in full display over the statue of the infamous Confederate General.