Monday, May 30, 2011

Interesting Activist Art Projects

This blog grew out of a study group on arts and social activism preceding the Big Learning Event, Powerful Conversations for the Future, at UW-Madison on June 7 & 8 2011.

Projects listed alphabetically. Please tell us about others we should add to the list!

Art Action Union
http://artactionunion.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/another-sporadic-activist-art-blog-thing/
Their aim is to provide creative & concerned people a platform & audience, archive of thoughts & celebration of actions for change.

Art & Remembrance
http://artandremembrance.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.showHome
Art and Remembrance is a non-profit, arts and educational organization that seeks to change people's hearts and minds by illuminating the experience of war, oppression, and injustice through the power and passion of personal narrative in art.

Art For Shelter
http://art4shelter.org/home.html
An exhibit and sale of original artworks on paper by emerging and established artists with all funds going to support a homeless shelter.. Each piece will sell for $30. A list of participating artists are updated on the website and posted the night of the event. The works themselves are signed only on the back. Donnors may end up with a work by a famous artist, or be the first to discover an unknown talent! All will be Simpson Housing Services.http://www.simpsonhousing.org/donate.html

Barefoot Artists
http://www.barefootartists.org/
Barefoot Artists brings the transformative power of art to the most impoverished communities in the world through participatory and multifaceted projects that foster community empowerment, improve the physical environment, promote economic development, and preserve and promote indigenous art and culture. Barefoot Artists develops projects in collaboration with individuals and/or agencies on the ground in identified communities. (There is a link to a Lilly Yeh presentation on this site).

City Repair
http://cityrepair.org/
City Repair is an organized group action that educates and inspires communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live. City Repair facilitates artistic and ecologically-oriented placemaking through projects that honor the interconnection of human communities and the natural world. City Repair began in Portland, Oregon with the idea that localization - of culture, of economy, of decision-making - is a necessary foundation of sustainability. By reclaiming urban spaces to create community-oriented places, we plant the seeds for greater neighborhood communication, empower our communities and nurture our local culture.

The Clothesline Project
http://www.clotheslineproject.org/
The Clothesline Project (CLP) is a program started on Cape Cod, MA, in 1990 to address the issue of violence against women. It is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women. With the support of many, it has since spread world-wide.

Code Pink
http://www.codepink4peace.org/
A women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.

Creative Visions Foundation
http://www.creativevisions.org/projects/cool-climate-contest.html
The Creative Visions Foundation is inspired by the life of Dan Eldon, an artist, adventurer and activist killed in Somalia in 1993 while covering the conflict as a photojournalist for Reuters News Agency. He was 22.

Critical Art
http://www.critical-art.net/
(CAE) is a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance. Formed in 1987, CAE's focus has been on the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism. The group has exhibited and performed at diverse venues internationally, ranging from the street, to the museum, to the internet.

Daughters of Vietnam Veterans
http://dovv.weebly.com/index.html

Ella’s Daughters
http://www.ellasdaughters.org/about-us/principles
Ella's Daughters is a multi-racial, multi-national, intergenerational network of women activists, scholars, artists and workers advancing justice in Ella Baker's democratic tradition and facilitating connections between different social justice movements. We embrace Ella Baker's Humanistic practice that affirms the dignity and worth of all people and also embrace the creative spirit of our collective imagination as a powerful force to help not only oppose the politics of domination but also to envision and realize something better.

Environmental Performance
http://www.environmentalperformance.info/
These are site-specific performances as they give attention to certain spaces where a large amount of litter is visible or generated.They focus on waste as the project considers waste the ultimate expression of our society. Analysing waste, our environment and by extension our culture and society can be examined.

Evolvegan
http://theveganbus.com/evolvegan/
To use art, performance, and media to educate and increase public awareness about the connections between dietary choice, personal health, cultural ethics, and globally sustainable ecology

Green Deen
http://greendeen.blogspot.com/2009/01/activist-art-finds-niche-in-urban.html
Green Deen is a proactive effort of young Muslim activists from Southern California who have come together for the sake of Allah (swt) to raise awareness and change the current environmental conditions by promoting a healthier, greener and more environmentally conscious lifestyle.

Green Arts Web: Artists & Projects
http://www.greenarts.org/artprojects.html

Green Museum
http://greenmuseum.org/
This online museum emerged from the organizers’ experiences making environmental art and from seeing firsthand some of the challenges facing artists, community groups, nonprofit organizations and arts institutions when it came to presenting and discussing environmental art. Useful community art toolboxes are a part of this site which they consider a giant collaborative art-making tool.

Graphic Arts Activist Project
DesignAThon
http://www.kutztown.edu/acad/commdes/news/designathon.html
Freewheel Design, Woody Holliman's design firm sponsors "DesignAThon"
DesignAThon is a 24-hour creative marathon during which created logotype and identity designs as well as posters, brochures, T-shirts, newsletters and Web sites. Twenty chosen nonprofits are culled from a list of 50 +applicants.

Judy Baca and the LA Murals
http://www.lamurals.org/MuralistPages/BacaJ.html
http://www.judybaca.com/now/index.php
http://www.nohoartsdistrict.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=290:the-current-plight-of-los-angeles-murals-by-judy-baca&Itemid=221

Keepers of the Waters
http://www.keepersofthewaters.org/
Founded by artist Betsy Damon, Keepers of the Waters works to inspire and promote projects that combine art, science and community involvement to restore, preserve and remediate water sources. Keepers is at the vanguard of integrated approaches to a vast complexity of water issues through collaborative innovative design, community organizing, mentoring, educating, providing workshops, and functioning as a cross cultural resource.

Knitting for Knockers
http://www.etsy.com/shop/KnittingForKnockers
Knitting for Knockers, established in 2006, is a collaborative of artisans and craftspersons working to promote their creations to benefit breast cancer research and education. We are an effort which strives to bring together the timeless art of knitting with modern-day activism ideals, thus shedding light on the concept of craftspeople as activist artists.

Landfill
http://www.thelandfill.org
Landfill is an online archive and quarterly subscription service that studies socially engaged artworks by documenting and redistributing the material byproducts they produce. The Landfill Archive includes scanned images of leftover materials and short descriptions of the projects they publicized and enabled. Each issue of Landfill Quarterly will contain selected pieces of ephemera from the Archive and a printed journal that contextualizes the objects through essays, images, and interviews. Landfill has three aims: to provide projects with a second venue for reception, to build a cumulative and nonlinear history of socially engaged practice, and to pull diverse practices into conversation by reframing them in writing.

LA Poverty Department
http://lapovertydept.org/state-of-incarceration/index.php
Highways Performance Space Presents the Los Angeles Poverty Department’s Examination of the Personal and Social Costs of Incarceration in the U.S.

LTE Arts
http://lter.limnology.wisc.edu/ltearts/
The goal of LTEArts is to create new ways to share research and information with the public through the arts. The project engages arts and humanities with Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) studies of future scenarios and landscape change. We hope to increase public understanding of lake ecology, highlight research results from our LTER lake studies, and encourage people to take an active role in defining and influencing the future of our lakes.

NAMES, AIDS Memorial Quilt
http://www.aidsquilt.org/history.htm
In June of 1987, a small group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. This meeting of devoted friends and lovers served as the foundation of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Today the Quilt is a powerful visual reminder of the AIDS pandemic, with more than 44,000 individual 3-by-6-foot memorial panels.

Philadelphia's Magic Gardens
http://www.phillymagicgardens.org/about/general

Ruckus Roots
http://ruckusroots.org/
They travel to festivals, concerts and campuses, with interactive installations encourage young adults to find their creative voice within the eco-activism community. They're creating positive pandemonium and infectious enthusiasm for art and advocacy wherever they go.

Social Artistry

http://www.jeanhoustonfoundation.org/social_artistry.aspx
Social Artistry™ is the art of enhancing human capacities in the light of social complexity. It seeks to bring new ways of thinking, being and doing to social challenges in the world


The Surveillance Camera Players
http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html
The Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) is a small, informal group of people who are unconditionally opposed to the installation and use of video surveillance cameras in public places. The SCP was formed in New York City in November 1996 by two groups of friends/activists.

Swamp Gravy
http://www.swampgravy.com/
Community storytelling festival and folk-life event in rural Georgia.

Temporary Services
http://www.temporaryservices.org/
Temporary Services is based in Chicago and Copenhagen and has existed, with several changes in membership and structure, since 1998. They produce exhibitions, events, projects, and publications. The distinction between art practice and other creative human endeavors is irrelevant to them. They move in and out of officially sanctioned spaces for art, keeping one foot in the underground the other in the institution.

Transformative Organizing
Social Justice Leadership: http://www.organizingupgrade.com/2010/06/ussf-social-justice-leadership/

Ultra Red
http://www.ultrared.org/mission.html
In the worlds of sound art and modern electronic music, Ultra-red pursue a fragile but dynamic exchange between art and political organizing. Founded in 1994 by two AIDS activists, Ultra-red have over the years expanded to include artists, researchers and organizers from different social movements including the struggles of migration, anti-racism, participatory community development, and the politics of HIV/AIDS.

Watershed: Art, Activism, and Community Engagement
http://watershedmke.wordpress.com/
Watershed: Art, Activism, and Community Engagement addresses the shifting ecological and political dimensions of water. This project, organized by Raoul Deal and Nicolas Lampert, uses art as a form of activism to comment on water issues in Milwaukee and the Great Lakes Basin, and their impact on the world at large. It tackles issues such as water shortages, notions of abundance, water privatization, invasive species, industrial pollution, and water as a human right.

Women’s Circus
http://womenscircus.org.au/index.php/about/
The Women’s Circus is a community arts organisation that presents innovative high quality circus performances and workshops to a diverse audience and participant base. Create and deliver a high standard of innovative and socially challenging circus programs and performances. Maintain and develop a vibrant and sustainable ongoing Women’s Circus community. Provide an opportunity for women to build self esteem and reaffirm control over their bodies in a safe and non competitive environment.

Wisconsin Specific Websites

The Big Learning Event: Powerful Conversations for the Future
June 7-8, 2011
UW-Madison, Union South
http://www.ohrd.wisc.edu

Madison Area Network for Innovation and Collaboration (UW-MANIACs)
http://uwmaniac.blogspot.com/
https://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/home/HideATab/LeadershipManagementDevelopment/lmdcommunities/UWMANIAC/tabid/274/Default.aspx
UW-MANIAC (Madison Area Network for Innovation & Collaboration) represents a network of continued collaborative learning and growth. This unique partnership includes a diverse group of UW-Madison departments and academic perspectives, as well as those from the private and non-profit sector. We host several events a year around a wide variety of topics, including the “Innovation and Collaboration Learning CafĂ© Series," a creative learning space that teaches creativity tools in an applied manner, a "Breakfast Series" and "Soires"in which members share inspiring ideas and creative approaches to work, and other opportunities to meet and share ideas, both through face-to-face conversation and virtual dialogue.

Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection
http://textilecollection.wisc.edu/index.html

The Arts are Losing Ground in Wisconsin
http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/the-arts-are-losing-ground-in-wisconsin/
Helen Klebesadel: A Muse and Her Artist Blog, March 6, 2011

You Don’t Always Know What You Got ‘Til Its Gone so don’t let the Wisconsin Arts Board go!
http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/your-don%E2%80%99t-always-know-what-you-got-%E2%80%98til-its-gone-so-don%E2%80%99t-let-the-wisconsin-arts-board-go/
Helen Klebesadel: A Muse and Her Artist Blog, April 9, 2011

Arts Wisconsin Website
**http://www.artswisconsin.org/getinvolved/index.cfm**

Wisconsin Arts Board Website
http://artsboard.wisconsin.gov/

Cycropia Aerial Dance
http://www.cycropia.org/about/missionvision.htm
Foster artistic expression and creative movement through dance, education, performance and other community-building activities and to create or participate in a community art/movement space which would serve as an incubator for creative and collaborative works and as a center for learning and the practice of movement arts.

Individual Artists: (more coming soon)

Helen Klebesadel
http://Klebesadel.com

Leslee Nelson
http://www.LesleeNelson.com

Angela Richardson
http://www.caculo.com/angela/talentmain.htm
The Greasy Gears
http://www.greasygears.org/
Born late at night in a bike shop on Madison’s near eastside, The Greasy Gears
are a girlicious gang of bicycle-ridin', go-go-dancin' fiends! They dance. They ride bikes. They have fun. They range in age from 11 to 59. We strive to create a positive, supportive, and fun learning environment for all of our members. They operate as a collective. They empower and challenge one another.

Madison’s own Forward Marching Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmngNgwCbo8

Procession of the Species

http://www.MadProcession.org

Books on Arts Activism

Alphabetical by author's last name. (Please tell us about others we should add!)

Barndt, Deborah, Wild Fire: Art as Activism, Sumach Press (May 15, 2006)
A collection of personal essays written by artists and activists who share their stories and experiences of creating and teaching with a focus on the inseparability of art and social change. The book is broken up into four parts: Art in Social Movements; Art as Activism; Eco Art; and Art Heals.

Borrup, Thomas C. Creative Community Builder's Handbook: How to Transform Communities Using Local Assets, Arts, and Culture, Fieldstone Alliance (August 2, 2006).
Even many people who care deeply about creative expression discount the power of art projects when it comes to urgent issues such as urban decline and the fraying of our social fabric. Fixing problems like these calls for pragmatic and sensible solutions, like a new shopping center or youth programs. Thankfully, Tom Borrup--longtime director of Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis and now a consultant, teacher, and writer about community development--buries this widely mistaken belief with an avalanche of real-world evidence.

Cleveland, William. Art in Other Places: Artists at Work in America's Community and Social Institutions, Praeger Publishers (2000)
Writers, performers, and artists have shown that the arts can have a significant positive effect on the lives of hospital patients, prisoners, the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill, and others in institutional settings. This volume recounts the histories of 22 institutional and community arts programs across the country pioneering this emerging field. Consisting largely of first-hand accounts, the book recounts how the creative processes have been used to address and solve some of society's most pressing problems. Included are case studies, research, and descriptions of the wide variety of artistic, educational, and therapeutic approaches utilized by each of the 22 programs.

Cleveland, William. Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World's Frontlines, New Village Press (March 1, 2008)
Artists on the World's Frontlines" is an assortment of stories of people of the arts, be they actor, writer, painter, playwright or such, standing up for their beliefs.

Ecco Publishes Comic Book on Fishing and the Environment
http://fieldmuseum.org/ecco-publishes-comic-book-fishing-and-environment
You can download this comic book from the Chicago Field Museum (here's the link: http://fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/FishTalesm.pdf). This little comic is packed with information.

Fauad-Luke, Alastair. Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World, Earthscan Publications Ltd. (June 2009).
This book provides a rigorous exploration of design activism that will revitalize the design debate and provide a solid platform for students, teachers, design professionals and other practitioners interested in transformative (design) activism. It provides a comprehensive study of contemporary and emergent design activism, collating, synthesizing and analyzing design activist approaches, processes, methods, tools and inspirational examples/outcomes from around the world. Inspired by past design activists and set against the context of global-local tensions, expressions of design activism are mapped.

Green, Susan. Bread and Puppet: Stories of Struggle and Faith from Central America, Backcountry Publications, (April 1985)

Gregory, Sam. Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism, Pluto Press (November 1, 2005).
This is a serious book for emerging documentary professionals who want to work on social justice issues. The book is closely tied to the organization Witness, and their pioneering work training and partnering with front-line NGOs around the world documenting human rights abuses.

Hartnett, Stephen John. Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives, University of Illinois Press (December 13, 2010).
The collection includes case studies of successful prison arts and education programs in Michigan, California, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that provide creative and intellectual resources typically denied to citizens living behind bars.

(Coming soon) Klanten, R. Art & Agenda: Political Art and Activism, Die Gestalten Verlag (June 22, 2011)
Art & Agenda explores the impact of political activism on contemporary art. The book introduces a variety of artists who are advocating political and social reform on a local or a global scale. Some are influenced by the traditions of Agitprop and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and work with posters, urban interventions, or graphic design. Others prefer established art forms such as painting, sculpture, or performance.

MacPhee, Josh. Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority, AK Press (January 1, 2007). An inclusive and sprawling collection of art and writings. Do-it--yourself printmaking, Zapatista video, street art in Argentina’s popular uprisings, radical puppetry, the monuments to Haymarket martyrs, turn-of-the-century Australian Industrial Workers of the World printmakers, illustrator Clifford Harper, and wobbly poet Carlos Cortez are just a few themes in this collection that bridges time and geographical and cultural boundaries.

MacPhee, Josh. Reproduce and Revolt, Soft Skull Press; Bilingual edition (May 15, 2008)
The book collects the work of dozens of important political artists from around the world. Both a striking collection of images and a graphic toolbox for political activists, the book contains illustrations and graphics covering issues such as war, the environment, immigration, the media, feminism, queer liberation, antiauthoritarianism, and police brutality. Clear instructions help readers use the images to achieve maximum impact.

Naidus, Beverly, Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame, New Village Press (April 1, 2009)
Arts for Change presents strategies and theory for teaching socially engaged art with an historical and contemporary overview of the field. The book features interviews with over thirty maverick artists/faculty from colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, whose pedagogy is drawn from and informs activist arts practice.

Reed, T.V. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle, University of Minnesota Press; 1 edition (July 1, 2005).
In comparative accounts of movements beginning with the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and running through the Internet-driven movement for global justice ("Will the revolution be cybercast?") of the twenty-first century. Reed explores the street drama of the Black Panthers, the revolutionary murals of the Chicano movement, the American Indian Movement's use of film and video, rock music and the struggles against famine and apartheid, ACT UP's use of visual art in the campaign against AIDS, and the literature of environmental justice.

Schwarzman, Mat. Beginner's Guide to Community-Based Arts, New Village Press (October 1, 2005)
Ten transformative local arts projects come alive in this illustrated training manual for youth leaders and teachers. This energetic guidebook demonstrates the enormous power of art in grass-roots social change. It presents proven models of community-based arts programs, plus techniques, discussion questions, and plentiful resources.

Senge, Peter, et.al. Necessary Revolution:How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world, Doubleday (June 2008)

Smith, Keri, The Guerilla Art Kit, Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (July 26, 2007)
The Guerilla Art Kit shows how small artistic acts can start a revolution. Keri Smith, author of Living Out Loud and the blog Wish Jar Journal, uses her unique drawing and handwriting style to help anyone find and release their inner artist or activist. From the quick exercises leaving books for strangers to find, chalking quotes on the sidewalk to the more involved making a "wish tree," guerilla gardening, or making your own stencils.

Wheatley, Margaret. Perseverance, Berrett-Koehler Publishers (September 1, 2010)
Perseverance is designed to offer guidance, challenge, clarity and consolation to all the people doing their work day-by-day. The topics are not the usual inspiring, feel good, rah-rah messages. Instead, Wheatley focuses on the situations, feelings, and challenges that can, over time, cause us to give up or lose our way. Perseverance is a discipline—it’s a day-by-day decision not to give up. Therefore, we have to notice the moments when we feel lost or overwhelmed or betrayed or exhausted and note how we respond to them. And we have to notice the rewarding times, when we experience the joy of working together on something hard but worthwhile, when we realize we’ve made a small difference.

Yeh, Lily. Awakening Creativity, Dandelion School Blossoms, New Village Press (May, 2011)
Awakening Creativity: Dandelion School Blossoms" is a call for social change through creativity from Lily Yeh, as she shares her own drive to make the world a better place through art and tells her story of turning a wasted factory space in Beijing into something that is so much more - the Dandelion school, aimed at the local children to give them inspiration for a better future. With a certain dedication, "Awakening Creativity" comes with a powerful message that definitely should not be overlooked.




Articles on Activist Art Projects


Alphabetical by Article Title (Please tell us about others we should add to the list!)

Art Activism
http://www.gazette.net/stories/04212010/entemon120156_32547.php
Drucker, Johanna.

Creative Placemaking
http://www.nea.gov/pub/CreativePlacemaking-Paper.pdf
Ann Arkusen & Anne Gadwa

Reflected in the Lens: After Years of Chronicling the African-American Experience, Photographer and Former MICA Professor Deborah Willis Turns the Camera on Herself
http://www2.citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=9785
Christina Royster-Hemby
Debra Willis, is a celebrated photographer, art historian and curator best known for her analysis of beauty from feminist and African American perspectives, turns the camera on herself for “Cancer Diaries,” one chapter in Family History Memory, her collection of photos and prose that chronicles her life, as well as her life’s work in documenting the African-American experience.

From starlight to pixels; the luminous world of artist Lily Yeh
http://www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/10914/1/Zanzot_From%282007%29.pdf
Jocelyn E. Zanzot
E-mail: Jocelyn.Zanzotup.ac.za

Latino Intersections
http://journals.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/2/xmlpage/2/article/271

NeMe: NEWS FROM NOWHERE, Activist Art and After, a Report from New York City by Gregory Sholette
http://www.neme.org/354/news-from-nowhere

Oaxaca Now: Young Radical Printmakers
http://www.artslant.com/chi/articles/show/1605