“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 …
Author Archives: The Center for Artistic Activism
“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
Use art to turn the world inside out | JRWatch this video on YouTube “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 …
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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“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 …
Event: Direct Action Fashion Show
Join the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space for the Direct Action Fashion Show Saturday, 02/09/2013 7:00pm 155 Ave C.
Black History Month at DS4SI
If you’re in the area, join our friends at the Design Studio for Social Intervention for their series of Black History Month programs, Black Love and the Black Image. Take advantage of the opportunity to meet some incredible activist-innovators and join in some good discussion.
Creative Activism: The Art of Social Change
For our friends in Denmark! Steve Duncombe will be speaking and participating in an event called Creative Activism: The Art of Social Change. The event is hosted by ActionAid Denmark, and will be held on January 23rd. If you’re in the neighborhood, roll on by…
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 …
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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 …
Laughing at Dictators
From Good.is: The small former-Soviet republic Belarus is considered to be Europe’s last surviving dictatorship. Protestors and the political opposition are jailed. Journalists are harassed. But that doesn’t mean stories from that small, landlocked nation—or the dissidents trying to bring democracy and free speech there—get much airtime in the West. Last week the Swedish advertising …
Rethinking the Protest Sign
Our friends at the Overpass Light Brigade use LED lights for a new take on an old tool in the activist arsenal. The novelty of the technology involved is enough to garner attention from the media – and Fox News, no less. Our favorite part of their work? They show you how to do it …
School for Creative Activism Awarded Third Year of Funding
For Immediate Release Contact: directors at artisticactivism-dot-org OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATION FUNDS THIRD YEAR OF THE SCHOOL FOR CREATIVE ACTIVISM The Democracy and Power Fund, an initiative of the Open Society Foundations, has announced a third year of funding for CAA’s successful School for Creative Activism workshops.
The stories you aren’t reading…
The CAA has been reading a lot about cognitive science lately. Confirmation bias – the tendency of individuals to filter out those stories and facts that challenge what they already believe – has been on my mind ever since I learned of it during a School for Creative Activism this summer. The concept is shockingly …
The Aesthetics of Doing: Ethics
Join us as we attend… The Aesthetics of Doing: Ethics A Panel Discussion from A Blade of Grass With Artists Wafaa Bilal, Andrea Geyer, Dread Scott. Moderated by Tom Finkelpearl, Executive Director, Queens Museum of Art Thursday, January 31st at 6:00 p.m. Do ethics equal aesthetics? This panel discussion brings together three artists who challenge …
An Archive of Desire
The name sounds vaguely like a catalog of clippings from the back of the Village Voice. Fortunately it’s not: The Archive of Desire documents evidence of everyday visionary imagination. Ideas for a future thriving sustainable society, from the practical to the impossible, are collected and documented in physical and digital form. These posts are snippets …