Attention New Yorkers! This event is FREE and open to the public. Please join us as we meet and collaborate with aspiring and seasoned creative activists. Why is it that artists’ collectives typically focused on political activism have emerged in such numbers over the past few years? What are the specific advantages to working in …
Author Archives: The Center for Artistic Activism
Tonight! Leonidas Martin at Harvard School of Design
Monday, April 1 12:00 – 2:00 PM Stubbins (Room 112), Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA A visual tour of some of the most creative art/activist interventions performed in the context of the counter-globalization movement, and in contemporary urban struggles in Spain, including Las Agencias, Yomango, Pret a Revolter, and New Kids on the …
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Howitcouldbedifferent.org: A Wikipedia for Social Change
Looking for some inspiration for your next creative activist project? Look no further than howitcouldbedifferent.org, which is described as a wikipedia for social change allowing users to post and share visions for a better world and ideas of specific progressive changes they would like to see happen. It was founded on a simple …
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33 Ways to Stay Creative
Check out this list of 33 Ways to Stay Creative for small everyday suggestions on how to keep the creative juices flowing: What would happen if most people followed its recommendations instead of just clicking “like”? How would our society change if schools posted these and then operated accordingly? –Liz Dwyer via …
From the Congo to Panama, Beat Making Labs Creates Sustainable Music Studios in Unlikely Places
Teaching Beat Making | Ep. 1: Goma, DR Congo | Beat Making Lab | PBS Digital StudiosWatch this video on YouTube When most folks think of Africa, they automatically think of famine, disease, and war. But for those who understand how media works, knows that the Africa most people think of is only one side of the vastly …
Comics in Kenya
We’ve been in Kenya for the last week, and have been honored to work with talented activists from Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. This is the first time the School for Creative Activism has traveled to Africa, and it’s been an incredible experience. One of the participants showed us a project he’s worked on for the …
Decaying Russian Buildings Transformed into Character Art
Russian artist Nikita Nomerz art series, “The Living Wall,” resurrects dilapidated buildings by turning them into pieces of art. In his interview with Global Street Art, Nikita explains the reasoning behind his series…. I paint in the street, in public spaces, but I do not position myself as an invader of the city or a destroyer. I position …
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Hip Hop for Healthy Eating
Real Food Justice: From Black Panther Party Roots to Hip Hop Activism, Foodies with Fists Youth attend a “Youth Hip Hop Green Dinners” where they enjoy performances by hip-hop artists and their first vegan meal! When his grandmother died from diabetes, Ashel Eldridge, a 32-year-old Oakland-based educator with the Alliance for Climate Education, set out …
Using Art to talk back to Unwanted “Compliments”
Posters on a wall on Tompkins Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, try to make the point that some comments to women aren’t welcome. “These things make you feel like your body isn’t yours,” the artist says. Shorty. Sweetie. Sweetheart. Baby. Boo. If you’re a woman, you’ve probably heard it. If you were to respond, what would …
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Crowdsourcing Change through Public Art
I Wish This Was began in New Orleans in November 2010. It was inspired by vacant storefronts. There are a lot of them where Candy lives in New Orleans. There are also a lot of people who need and want things. What if we could easily voice what we want, where we want it? How can …
Somalia Guerrilla Artists Dare to Paint Reality
MOGADISHU, Somalia — The guerrilla artists come out in the darkness of the Mogadishu night. Three of them are old hands with a brush, but they’ve never been out on such a crazy mission at a time when sensible people stay indoors. They gather for work in a converted garage, with a wildly paved floor …
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SCA Application Deadline EXTENDED
We’ve received a lot of pleas for extensions, and we get it. You’re really, really busy. We’re extending the deadline for applications to our School For Creative Activism until March 14. Go home, have some fun and get some rest, and make sure to get it into us in the next two weeks. Download 2013 …
Grace and Gravity – Monumental Work by El Anatsui
Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El AnatsuiWatch this video on YouTube “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 …
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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 …
Creativetime 2012: How to disrupt the financial order with humor, creativity and a dash of mischief
In Creativetime 2012, artist-activist Leónidas Martín from Enmedio Collective in Spain gives different guidelines on how make protest artistic, effective and fun.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
http://youtu.be/dxEvsj80fsE 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 …
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, …
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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 …