Actipedia | A Wiki for Creative Activism

Art Cannot Provide a Way Out

In 2006, art historian Claire Bishop lit a fire under the collective seat of the art world with her Artforum piece “The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents.” It set off — as much as any essay in the hermetic…

Corporations Ain’t People

Practitioner:
Backbone Campaign

Corporations Ain’t People: A Musical Protest September 14, 2010; YES Magazine When Target spent $150,000 to support a Minnesota politician who favors anti-gay legislation, thousands of people decided to boycott the big-box chain. But instead of simply shopping elsewhere, these…

Crack is Wack

Practitioner:
Keith Haring

Without having been commissioned—or even given legal permission at all—Haring set out to create Crack Is Wack on the wall of an abandoned handball court in a park at 2nd Avenue and East 128th Street on June 27, 1986. Upon…

Sex Strike

Practitioner:
Liberal Ladies Who Lunch

Mockery: Women’s New Weapon SATURDAY, MAR 17, 2012, www.salon.com, BY TRACY CLARK-FLORY From a proposed sex strike to mock legislation restricting access to Viagra, women are coming up with increasingly creative ways to respond to attacks on reproductive rights. Many of…

Take a Photo, Save a Child

Practitioner:
Jianrong Yu

On January 17, 2011, Hong Yuping (洪玉萍), from Fujian Province, contacted Yu Jianrong (于建嵘), at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), about her family’s plight and requested assistance: In June 2009, their son, Yang Weixin (杨伟鑫), then age six,…

Retirement dinner turned into hilarious protest

Practitioner:
UK Uncut

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. The protesters, who accuse Hartnett of allowing corporations such as Vodafone…

ŠTO TE NEMA (WHY ARE NOT YOU HERE)

Practitioner:
Aida Šehović

ŠTO TE NEMA is a public monument created as a response to Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II – the systematic killing of 8,372 Muslim men and boys in the UN-protected safe area of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina…

Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet

Practitioner:
Cool Globes

A public art exhibition designed to raise awareness of solutions to climate change. Cool Globes grew out of a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005, and was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 2006. Since that time, Cool…

Street Advertising Takeover – Artist turns billboards into democratic spaces

Practitioner:
Jordan Seiler

“Two weekends ago, a loose network of these artists and activists, under the name Subvertisers International, launched their first global effort to reclaim our shared public environment from its monopolization by commercial media. The demand was not for better or…

Orixás

Practitioner:
Hugo Canuto

Imagine if back in the 1960s, creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee had found inspiration for The Avengers in Yoruba mythology. Instead of Iron Man, we’d have the warrior Oxaguiã. Taking the place of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Norse god Thor…

Sudanese Activist Artist Breaks Down Borders

Practitioner:
Elshafei Dafalla Mohamed

VOA NEWS March 29, 2012 By Nico Colombant WASHINGTON–A Sudanese artist from the restive Blue Nile region is using art and activism to promote the plight of people caught between borders and conflict. In an audio montage of memories…

Found Futures: Postcards From The Future (2007)

Practitioner:
Guerrilla Futures

Postcards from four different versions of Hawaii circa 2030 were mailed out serially to the homes of over 100 community leaders. “On Monday, it was an official (non-diplomatic) invitation from the sovereign “Commonwealth of Hawai’i”. On Tuesday came a promotional…