Grace and Gravity – Monumental Work by El Anatsui

“In the exhibition are twelve recent monumental wall and floor sculptures, widely considered to represent the apex of Anatsui’s career. The metal wall works, created with bottle caps from a distillery in Nsukka, are pieced together to form colorful, textured hangings that take on radically new shapes with each installation. Anatsui is captivated by his …

SCA Kenya Participants Announced

Mohamed Awadh Aboud Mohamed is the proud father of two daughters. He is an outreach worker with the Omari Project, which advocates for the rights of drug users and works to slow the spread of HIV and reduce harm related to drug use. Mohamed is a hard worker, eager to learn new things and make …

The Sounds of the Spanish Revolution

After a demonstration, on May 15 2011, around forty people decided to sleep in Puerta del Sol, one of Madrid´s central squares. This was the origin of a complex protest camp, that would take a phenomenon which had its origins in the Arab Spring to the Western World. On that first night, Kamen Nedev was …

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles the remarkable story of the courageous Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country. Thousands of women — ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim — came together to pray for peace and then staged a …

Photographer Leslie Thomas Wants to Shock You

Leslie Thomas wants to shock you. She wants to anger you. And above all, she wants you to do something. She’s not talking about run-of-the-mill, “Hey buddy, watch your step” angry or TMZ sleaze shock. She’s talking about the great humanitarian and social crises of our time, like in Darfur, Afghanistan or Myanmar. And yes, …

Tedx Talk: “We are all born Artists”

“There are so many reasons why we can’t be, indeed, we’re not sure why we should be. We don’t know why we should be artists, but we have many reasons why we can’t be. Why do people instantly resist the idea of associating themselves with art? Perhaps you think art is for the greatly gifted …

“You can also define creative intervention as a real move”: Fragments of an interview with Andrew Boyd

Andrew Boyd describes himself as an “author, activist, and prankster for social change”, involved in campaigns such as Billionaires for Bush or The other 98%. Together with Dave Oswald Mitchell, he recently edited Beautiful Trouble. A toolbox for revolution, a kind of instruction manual for creative activism. We had the chance to ask him some …

Coco Fusco

“People don’t like the things that I do. At all. The problem is that I still do them. So it’s kind of like, it would be easy to throw me out for a lot of reasons, and I have gotten bounced. But I’m still working. That’s enough.” “It took three hundred years to get rid …

Use Art To Turn The World Inside Out

“JR, a semi-anonymous French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. At TED2011, he makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out. Learn more about his work and learn how you can join …

Digital Media Challenge Offers $100,000 in Prizes For Fresh Ideas on Democracy

  Looking@Democracy is a national competition offering a total of $100,000 in prize money for short, provocative media submissions designed to spark a national conversation about why government is important to our lives, or how individuals and communities can come together to strengthen American democracy. Launching today, February 4, 2013, the challenge will award $25,000 …

Artist Favianna Rodriguez Talks Immigrant Rights And Art’s Role In Politics

The Huffington Post interviewed artist and activist Favianna Rodriguez about her new documentary “Migration is Beautiful,” how she envisions the future role of artists in politics, and what she believes the role of art to be in activism. “Art is uniquely able to speak to our understanding of the world by delivering potent, powerful and empathetic …

Participation, Not Marginalization: Using People’s Stories for Social Good

“Maybe sometimes we should be story facilitators and help others tell their own stories instead of doing it for them.” Filmmaker Jordan Byron reflects on the power of sharing stories and poses important questions about the ethics that accompany this growing movement. Read the full article at Good.is- Participation, Not Marginalization: Using People’s Stories for Social …

Moore Exhibit Highlights: Activism’s Beautiful Byproducts

Say what? A shotgun-style house in Houston painted by artist/activist Rick Lowe. While provocative works may routinely fill the galleries at Moore College of Art and Design, their latest undertaking, Living As Form (The Nomadic Version) is certainly more complex than most. Perhaps the easiest way to wrap your head around the unprecedented, traveling exhibition is to …

“The Kiss” in Syria Goes VIRAL

Syrian artist Tammam Azzam took the twittersphere by storm last week when he posted an image of Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss” superimposed on the facade of a bullet-ridden building in Damascus. The photoshopped image — which some mistook for an actual street-side mural — brought the eye of the art world to the artist’s war-torn home country.     Describing the …

School for Creative Activism Applications Now Being Accepted

For Immediate Release Contact: manager at artisticactivism-dot-org APPLICATIONS FOR 2013 SCHOOL FOR CREATIVE ACTIVISM NOW BEING ACCEPTED Download 2013 SCA application here. The Center for Artistic Activism is pleased to announce the beginning of the application cycle for our third year of School for Creative Activism Workshops, to be held in the Spring and Summer …

The Joker Always Wins

One of my favorite lessons from the School for Creative Activism is this: fun can be powerful and comedy can be dead serious.  The best activism is effective because it hits people at an emotional level – at that gut-level sweet spot where decisions are made before conscious thought.  But it’s not an easy spot to reach …