Environment – Page 10 – Actipedia | A Wiki for Creative Activism

The Tragic Story Behind Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”

Date:
Apr 15 1937

In March 1939, a 23-year-old Billie Holiday walked up to the mic at West 4th’s Cafe Society in New York City to sing her final song of the night. Per her request, the waiters stopped serving and the room went…

‘Time to rebel’: Greta Thunberg adds voice to new song by the 1975

Practitioner:
Greta Thunberg, The 1975

Date:
Apr 15 1937

Greta Thunberg has made her musical debut on a single by the 1975. On a track called The 1975, a version of which traditionally opens each of the British band’s albums, the 16-year-old environmental activist restates her position on the…

The radical power of sewing: the artist turning textiles into activism

Practitioner:
Aram Han Sifuentes

Date:
Apr 15 1937

Sewing and textiles have always been a part of the artist Aram Han Sifuentes’ life. Her South Korean immigrant parents operated a dry cleaning business, and she mended her own clothing from a young age. But it wasn’t until she…

Why protesters disrupted London Fashion Week

Practitioner:
Extinction Rebellion protesters

Date:
Apr 15 1937

Protesters from Extinction Rebellion disrupted London Fashion Week last weekend (15 February). The group called on the industry to change its approach to protecting the planet: “We are asking not for sustainability but a complete reinvention of this industry in…

William Shatner targets Hewlett-Packard for toxic waste

Practitioner:
Greenpeace

Date:
Apr 15 1937

Hewlett-Packard pledged to stop using dangerous plastics in its computers by 2009. It broke that promise. Will a company-wide voicemail from William Shatner make it change its mind? When the employees of Hewlett-Packard checked their messages yesterday, they got a…

Climate Activists Deface Constitutional Monument in Germany with Black Paint, Posters

Practitioner:
The Last Generation

Date:
Apr 15 1937

Climate activists defaced a work of art near Germany’s Parliament Saturday in the latest act of vandalism by protestors concerned with environmental policy. Members of The Last Generation threw black liquid over a series of glass plates displaying 19 articles…

Ice Watch London

Practitioner:
Olafur Eliasson

Date:
Apr 15 1937

The Guardian: Olafur Eliasson is putting the chill into climate change. The revered Scandinavian artist has placed 24 large blocks of centuries-old ice, harvested from the Nuup Kangerlua fjord in Greenland, in a circle outside the Tate Modern in London,…

Waste Land Project

Practitioner:
Vik Muniz

Date:
Apr 15 1937

The project involved creating portraits of garbage pickers from the Jardim Gramacho landfill near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, using materials found in the landfill itself. Muniz worked with the garbage pickers to create the portraits, which were then photographed and…

Wheatfield – A Confrontation

Practitioner:
Agnes Denes

Date:
Apr 15 1937

Architectural Digest: Agnes Denes’s pioneering artwork, whether it’s her cerebral conceptual pieces mining her deep understanding of mathematics and philosophy, or her literally down-to-earth land art, has always had a prophetic quality. And her prescient 1982 Wheatfield – A Confrontation,…

The Point is to Change It

Practitioner:
Liberate Tate

Date:
Apr 15 1937

When President Trump announced the US departure from the Paris Climate Accord on 1 June 2017, his enjoyment at walking over the efforts of national delegations and hundreds of pressure groups across the world who fought for that deal was…