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.
In February 2017, authorities in Chechnya -- a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus -- arrested a man they suspected to be under the influence of a controlled substance. As is procedure, they searched his phone. According to a report from the Human Rights Watch, they found “explicit material” (most likely shared nude photos and gay pornography), and the contact details of dozens of gay men.
Danish 26-year-old art student Nadia Plesner designed this T-shirt depicting a Darfurian child holding a Louis Vuitton handbag as commentary on global disparity as it relates to war, developing nations, commercialism, and media.
In 2006, the fashion house sued Plesner for her appropriation of their trademark. The case was subsequently dismissed.
In 2013, Shell sent out press releases about their upcoming event, the Science Slam, which would aim to “celebrate the company’s responsible oil production” and “showcase ideas for renewable energy by scientists and students.” Essentially, Shell organized this event in the hopes that it would allow the multinational oil company to appear as if it is actually concerned about the environment and finding alternatives to oil.
A vibrant red mural in the heart of Barcelona serves as both an artistic expression and social activism. Officially known as the Todos Juntos Podemos Parar el SIDA (Together We Can Stop AIDS), the public art was created by the renowned American artist and AIDS activist Keith Haring in 1989. More than just a work of art, this mural represents a powerful call to action against the AIDS epidemic that was ravaging communities worldwide at the time.
In 2009, conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demoted the publicly-funded Italian Theatre Insitute (or ETI) to "disposable" status, hacking funding for the arts considerably. ETI promoted Italian companies abroad, managed the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, the Duse theatre in Bologna, and Rome's Teatro Valle--the oldest theatre in Rome, located between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, Campo dei Fiori and the Senate.
Civil activists set up a giant loaf of bread on the small square of a bus stop near the Cathedral Store in Center to remind passersbys that a large number of their fellow citizens live below the poverty threshold.
In March of 2022, JR, with the help of 100 volunteers, unfurled the portrait of five-year-old, Ukrainian refugee Valeriia in Lviv, Ukraine. Leaving Ukraine, JR saw firsthand how difficult it was for women and children to get to safety due to long queues at the border. In response, he released two NFTs of Valeriia as part of his solidarity project titled: Can Art Change the War?
In August 2015, Weston-Super-Mare - a sleepy seaside town in Somerset, England - suddenly became the top destination for the metropolitan elite, welcoming celebrity guests like Brad Pitt, Jack Black and Mark Ronson. Overnight this quaint town, just 18 miles from Bristol, was transformed by anonymous street artist Banksy when he opened his very own dystopian Disneyland style theme park called ‘Dismaland’.
The origin of the Soviet disco tradition, one that lasts to this day in the DJ-laden nightlife of Moscow and St. Petersburg, lay in the Stalinist era. Western culture – modernism, cubism, rock and roll, all that good stuff – was “decadent,” perhaps even a plot by Trotskyists or the Western intelligentsia to dull the steely nerves of the Soviet people. But dancing – this was a-OK.
Museums and art galleries are not usually the sites of feminist political protest. Yet over the past couple of years, before the lockdown, gallery visitors all over the UK had noticed a small, determined activist whose modus operandi is “Small signs, big questions, fabulous wardrobe”.
Pablo Picasso painted Guernica in just five weeks in the spring of 1937.
Then living in Paris, Picasso, fifty-five, was already well-known. Born in Spain in 1881, he went to Paris in 1900; he had visited Spain in 1934 but would never return.
Two design students were awarded the Futurapolis prize last Wednesday for their project to adapt the Furan (underground river) , a response to the migration crisis.
Notice Nature was a public engagement action undertaken by participants in the Erasmus+ funded training 'Creativity and Change: Empathy 2 Action - nurturing response-able global citizens' which took place in Cork from 8th - 13th April 2017. The team members were Marie-Michele Tessier, Aoife Dare, Ann Foulds, Zsofi Toth and Claire Faithorn.
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.
In the era of New Media, we share media content with a single click. We co-create the reality of our world, often without thinking how this reality is "real." Nevertheless, what if this reality is sometimes somewhat coloured?
Dan Perjovschi is one of Romania’s foremost artistic voices. Although known as a talented multi-disciplinary artist in his home country, particularly for his early performance work, he is most widely known internationally for his massive drawing installations.
The ZAD (zone à défendre, or “zone to defend”) in Western France is 4000 acres of wetland, farmland and forest that was originally intended to be built into an airport in 1965 but is now an autonomous territory occupied by 40 different collectives looking to reclaim the land. There are around 200 people living permanently on the zone, in addition to some 2,000 people coming and going.
Now What? project has just finished a series of interactive workshops, where global citizens came together to reflect on the global sustainability issues, got inspired and empowered to imagine the world anew through poetry and imagery.
With the focus on the community and climate action, the project is live on social platforms and soon to be a collective street art too.
How many of the 38 environmental protests staged in museums in 2022 can you remember? How many of the more recent ones only generated widespread outrage? Did any of them lead to tangible change? The protesters’ cause is serious, the threat is very real, the message is important and urgent. But is it not getting through to the public?
Melissa is a down-to-earth, friendly woman in her 50s, and it seems that she has always met life with a certain amount of courage. She grew up on another continent, and after early motherhood, then divorce and a first career in business, she moved to the UK with her second husband. She then built another career working with survivors of domestic violence, before setting up a climate emergency centre in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
Palestinian and Israeli flags flutter in pro-Irish and pro-UK neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland, tapping into its own history of conflict and division that still affects everyday life despite a 1998 peace deal that largely ended violence.
DEPENDING on your taste, punk died in 1979, or maybe 1994, or whenever studded leather cuffs became a must-have mall-girl accessory. Now, suddenly, punk has been resurrected, stitched together anew in the form of the well-accessorized Russian women who call themselves Pussy Riot.
Presaged by shimmering spin-off hits “Dreams” and “Linger,” The Cranberries’ landmark debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, suggested its creators had taken up the baton handed down by jangly indie-pop classicists The Smiths and The Sundays.