The Donald gets duped: Harvard Lampoon tricks Trump with phony endorsement — and he’s not happy about it | Salon

The Donald’s been duped. In what’s been called a “a prank of presidential proportions,” the staff at Harvard University’s humor magazine, the Harvard Lampoon, targeted Donald Trump for their latest prank in a longstanding rivalry with the University’s daily student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. Trump, the real-estate mogul turned Republican presidential frontrunner, inadvertently became the center of …

Edward Snowden monument placed (and removed) in New York City

There’s a Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn While most people slept, a trio of artists and some helpers installed a bust of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Brooklyn on Monday morning. The group, which allowed ANIMAL to exclusively document the installation on the condition that we hide …

Steve’s Super Hero Exercise

Here’s a great exercise for students to discover their inner superhero! (and their voice at the same time) The Super Hero Exercise is curriculum by Center for Artistic Activism co-director, Steve Lambert. Introduction The purpose of this exercise is to help young and old discover: Why use this? For all but experienced artists, the idea …

Actipedia Revisited: The Pink Chaddi Campaign

It’s International Women’s Day! So this week, we’re taking a look at a really powerful piece of collective creative activism that managed to have a real material impact on a very troubling and potentially violent situation. The Pink Chaddi Campaign was an action devised by the “Consortium of Pub-going, Loose, and Forward Women” (PLFW) in …

Actipedia Revisited: Women on Waves

So this week we’re doffing our caps to the work of Women on Waves, who worked with our good friends at Yes Lab to create the www.diesalforwomen.com website ‘Misopolis’, a fabricated fashion brand which claimed to provide free abortion pills to its female workers in order to set them free and to create a fun …

Actipedia Revisited: Mcdonald’s Videogame

This week we’re taking a look at the McDonald’s Videogame, where you own and operate a McDonald’s restaurant. In the game you have the choice to try to operate ethically or make decisions like using genetically modified soy or administering bovine growth hormone. If you go the ethical route, you bankrupt the company and lose. The …

Actipedia: Pigasus for President

CHICAGO At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, the Yippies (Youth International Party) nominated a pig for president, with the campaign pledge: “They nominate a president and he eats the people. We nominate a president and the people eat him.” This porcine political maneuver was the brainchild of sixties activists Abbie Hoffman and …

Actipedia Revisited: Princess Hijab

‘My art has nothing to do with religion.’ This week we’re throwing the spotlight on the guerilla street art of Princess Hijab. Princess Hijab détournes advertising in public spaces: superimposing black veils onto the iconography of popular culture. ‘The Hijab is very powerful, not just religiously. It has been used in fairytales. It is part of the …

Actipedia Revisted: Pro-Choice Trolling

From the vaults of Actipedia this week we’re looking at a subtle way of subverting your local store to do your messaging for you! When Hobby Lobby, the US craft store, filed a lawsuit against a federal mandate requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives Jasmine Shea and Nathaniel Peck decided to take action. …

24 pieces of life advice from Werner Herzog – via Kottke.org

Paul Cronin’s book of conversations with filmmaker Werner Herzog is called Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed. On the back cover of the book, Herzog offers a list of advice for filmmakers that doubles as general purpose life advice. Always take the initiative. There is nothing wrong with spending a night in jail …

Call for Applications: School for Creative Activism – Campaigns to Support Sex Work Activism in South Africa

We’re pleased to announce a call for applications to a School for Creative Activism training session taking place this March, in South Africa. “In an open society sex workers should have the same rights to safe working environments as all other workers.” (Open Society Foundation) We’re inviting grantees of the Open Society Public Health Program …

Actipedia Revisited: #occupysmallstreet

This week we’re giving a shout out to small-scale activism with the #occupysmallstreet movement. First inspired by a doll-sized action in Siberia, this example has been created by Arts X Activism  from Melbourne, Australia. Signs are made collectively, by regular Occupy Small Street-ers and members of the public (adults and children) who stop by and have …

Letters of Note: Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope.

“Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”   –E.B. White Letters of Note provides a snapshot into the faxes, memos, letters, telegrams, and any other fascinating tidbits of correspondence that Shaun Usher can get his hands on. Originally a blog-based archive, it has grown …

Actipedia revisited: Public Movement – ‘Re-Branding European Muslims’ (2012)

Each week we’ll be calling back to an example of creative activism from our website Actipedia – an open-access, user-generated database of creative activism. This week we’d like to highlight this really powerful piece of arts activism by Public Movement, a Tel Aviv based ‘performative research body’. In 2012 they created Re-Branding European Muslims to investigate conflict …

An African’s Message for America

A volunteer trip abroad has become almost a rite of passage for a certain set of Americans, particularly students. Head over to NYtimes.com for an Op-Doc video profiling a Kenyan activist who has one simple question for them: “Why?”  “Nearly one million people from America volunteer abroad each year. They are mostly young, mostly affluent and overwhelmingly …