# data[].attributes.headline
It makes sense to look at artivism as a tool for social change in Countries like Sweden, Finland among others.  However, if you try it in undemocratic states like Congo, Burundi, Egypt, Uganda, among others, you will have a story to tell. Do you think artivism as the tool for social change can be successful in every country?

# data[].attributes.subject
It makes sense to look at artivism as a tool for social change in Countries like Sweden, Finland among others.  However, if you try it in undemocratic states like Congo, Burundi, Egypt, Uganda, among others, you will have a story to tell. Do you think artivism as the tool for social change can be successful in every country?

# data[].attributes.body
Narice Ninyesiga

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoNt_RKhIdk

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.havanatimes.org/?p=130054&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+havanatimes%2Fapge+%28Havana+Times+Posts%29

# data[].attributes.body
This is a popular facebook page that uses art to highlight and explain different mental health issues and create awareness
https://www.facebook.com/theartidote/?ref=br_tf

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/05/second-amendment-right-to-bear-arms-meaning-history

# data[].attributes.headline
Reclaiming Our Campus teach-in starts discussion on anti-racism activism

# data[].attributes.subject
Reclaiming Our Campus teach-in starts discussion on anti-racism activism

# data[].attributes.body
article on “Scholarship as Activism” looking at how academic engagement often exists in conflict with social activism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On Thursday afternoon, a group of about 100 students, faculty and Ann Arbor residents scattered around the University of Michigan Museum of Art for the first-ever "Reclaiming Our Campus" teach-in, which allowed participants to share knowledge, unpack experiences and grasp how to mobilize against hate speech on campus.

The event was organized by an informal network of students and faculty from a variety of academic backgrounds, as they tried to create a space where the audience members felt empowered to listen and participate equally. Unlike other events related to the discussion of diversity on campus, Thursday's teach-in was the culmination of efforts from this group of undergraduates, professors, staff members and graduate students who meet once a week to discuss an interdisciplinary approach to anti- white supremacy activism. The teach-in was a part of a broader series of diversity events in the "2018 Speech and Inclusion: Recognize Conflict and Building Tools for Engagement" series.

To kick off the day's activities, University alum Hardy Vieux, a first-generation Haitian immigrant and the legal director of Human Rights First, an independent advocacy organization that challenges the U.S. to live up to its ideals, gave a keynote speech about how his feelings of isolation as an undergraduate inspired him to organize with other minority students. As a student, he said he was assured refuge from hate in Black barber shops. He remained hopeful of the future of the campus.

"I am only an expert on my own unique life experiences," Vieux said. "There is cause to celebrate the differences that inform the truths and commonalities that define our connections. I'm not here to tell you what to think, I'm simply asking you to think."

After Vieux prepared the audience for the day's goings-on, participants dispersed throughout the main and basement levels of the UMMA to begin the first hour of dialogues and discussions. In total, there were three hour-long themed blocks, each with five concurrent sessions in separate spaces. Some participants attended events out of curiosity, while others went to see specific speakers and professors.

During the first block, a dialogue sponsored by the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching took place, titled, "Constructing Just Classrooms, Deconstructing Whiteness." Facilitators drew attention to the unintended consequences of whiteness in the classroom that tend to go unnoticed. One of the leaders of the discussion, Assistant Director of CRLT Whitney Peoples, encouraged audience members to consider the direct and indirect relationships between whiteness and white supremacy. In asking the group about systematic and informal racism, she reminded those in attendance that white supremacy doesn't always manifest acutely - it can be commonplace and casual.

"White supremacy is the everyday," Peoples said. "It's not the skinhead, the KKK member with the hood, or the Richard Spencer. Talking about whiteness is a way to see how we're all implicated in this discussion. It's a way to remind us that it's involved in our everyday experiences, and everyday practices, even though we may not appreciate it as such."

Rackham student Anat Belasen felt directly attaching labels to racist terms and ideas is helpful for people trying to dissect their origins and mitigate their triggers.

"The discussion helped me define whiteness and it helped me put a lot of these ideas into terminology and think about its role in the classroom I teach in as a GSI (graduate student instructor)," Belasen said. "There's no right answer to every situation. You can't really give someone a script for dealing with these kinds of situations - that would make it seem like it's not coming across as genuine. Giving us vague tools to us develop our own strategy like these can be helpful."

In the second hour-long block of the day's events, a session titled, "Scholarship is Activism" looked at how academic engagement often exists in conflict with social activism. The event's facilitator, Tabbye Chavous, the director of the National Center for Institutional Diversity, spoke personally about how stature as a scholar can work in direct opposition to one's level of activist involvement.

"For some people, who you are and what you do in your field can represent a barrier," Chavous said. "The object of the game is actually thinking about your special tools, interests, talents and skills, and considering the best ways to deploy them both inside the University and outside the University. Maybe people in academia should be pushed to be engaged in the work of activism more than they already are."

There was overwhelming support for the notion that there should be a more considerable discourse on how to mesh academic and activist engagement, but participants worried the discussion wasn't going to result in concrete changes. Nyeema Harris, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, said while the discussions resonated with her on the challenges that she's recently faced on campus, there was something missing. She expressed frustration that the hour-long discussion "barely scratched the surface" of how participants should move forward.

"What matters is how we continue the conversation," Harris said. "That part wasn't really defined. We have these people around the table, now what do we? Outlining what those next steps are is essential to actually have change and implementation. How do we implement the knowledge we just gained? They got us all jazzed, all ready to go, all ready to fight ... Now what?"

Belasen similarly expressed the activities were flawed by design in that they both weren't long enough for the topics and failed to designate enough time to talk about the next steps of anti-hate speech activism.

"I get a little bit frustrated during this kind of thing because I want there to be suggestions of how to deal with these topics, especially as an instructor," Belasen said. "I think even though it's something they laid out, like they told us to expect a lack of closure, I really feel that lack of closure. It's getting at me."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reclaiming Our Campus teach-in starts discussion on anti-racism activism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On Thursday afternoon, a group of about 100 students, faculty and Ann Arbor residents scattered around the University of Michigan Museum of Art for the first-ever "Reclaiming Our Campus" teach-in, which allowed participants to share knowledge, unpack experiences and grasp how to mobilize against hate speech on campus.

# data[].attributes.headline
Very interesting ted-talk about how introverts can and need to be activists. A lot of the activism discussed in the talk would, at least I think, be excellent examples of artivism: 

# data[].attributes.subject
Very interesting ted-talk about how introverts can and need to be activists. A lot of the activism discussed in the talk would, at least I think, be excellent examples of artivism: 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sarah Corbett: Activism needs introverts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For the introverts among us, traditional forms activism like marches, protests and door-to-door canvassing can be intimidating and stressful. Take it from Sarah Corbett, a former professional campaigner and self-proclaimed introvert. She introduces us to "craftivism," a quieter form of activism that uses handicrafts as a way to get people to slow down and think deeply about the issues they're facing, all while engaging the public more gently.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.journalpost.com/news/artivists-global-warming-art/

# data[].attributes.body
Contains great examples of artivism around the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." G.K. Chesterton

What is Activism?

Activism is quite simply taking action to effect social change; this can occur in a myriad of ways and in a variety of forms. Often it is concerned with 'how to change the world' through social, political, economic or environmental change. This can be led by individuals but is often done collectively through social movements.

Activist or Activism?

It's not where you're from; it's not where you're at: it's what you do.

Many people can be classified as activists and many actions can be interpreted as activism, but this doesn't mean that all activism is carried out by activists. The term activist itself is contentious, as what constitutes an activist and what actions can be defined as activism are often contested.

We at a Permanent Culture Now would prefer not to use the term 'activist' in the classical sense as it creates a division between those who define themselves as activists and those who carry out activism. We feel it is more important to look at the actions being undertaken rather than how individuals define themselves. W may not 100% agree with Saul Alinsky on the right but we think he definitely has a point. Indeed, as Andrew X states in his article Give Up Activism,

"The activist is a specialist or an expert in social change. To think of yourself as being an activist means to think of yourself as being somehow privileged or more advanced than others in your appreciation of the need for social change, in the knowledge of how to achieve it and as leading or being in the forefront of the practical struggle to create this change... Defining ourselves as activists' means defining our actions as the ones which will bring about social change, thus disregarding the activity of thousands upon thousands of other non-activists. Activism is based upon this misconception that it is only activists that do social change."

It is crucial to not fall into the trap of alienating oneself by doing this, as it can lead to a sense of delusion that you solely are the bringer of change, combined with a distancing of yourself from the wider population and also alienating those who may be supportive.

When viewing or considering becoming involved in activism, it pays to be realistic about what you hope to achieve and what impact you may have. Sometimes, activism can lead to misconceptions about the change you can help foster so it pays to remain grounded about what individual potential you may have. The reality is that activism is not about how people look or the clothes they wear: the sine qua non of activism is doing. When looking at activism in action, look not at how groups define themselves but rather, what they do as this is often much more informative and decisive.

Furthermore, we at Permanent Culture Now would add that even though it is helpful to take an ideological position regarding where you situate yourself within the political landscape (e.g. socialist, anarchist, communist, etc.), you should be careful when adhering to such conceptual frameworks for they may blind you to other ways of seeing the world around you. Indeed, engaging in sterile debates concerning doctrinal position and/or interpretation can hinder and in some cases prevent positive social action occurring. Surely it is more productive to look at what we have in common rather than what we don't as a basis for joint action? Pragmatism is key: you have to ask what is more important: engaging in debates about what is the correct interpretation of such and such philosopher or the person sat beside you willing and ready to engage in positive social action.

Different types of activism

Activism has three distinct strands that very often overlap and intersect with each other.

1) Demanding solutions to contemporary problems through the taking of oppositional stances to mainstream policies.

This is the type of campaigning activism that includes protests, strikes, demonstrations etc. They key to this type of activism is that it is demand-driven with the aim being a change in policy, practice or operations. This sort of action often takes the form of short-term actions, but can also be long-term sustained campaigns.

2) Undertaking activism which manifests itself through the creation of alternatives to the dominant system through the construction of new ways of social behaviour.

Key to this type of activism is the creation of new structures and alternatives within society, often with the hope that they will lead as an example which others will also imitate and develop. It is often concerned with ways of living and meeting people's needs such as housing, food and education.

Examples of this would be housing and food cooperatives, social centres, worker cooperatives, new age travellers, squats etc. This sort of activism is often carried out by collectives of people over long periods of time, though this is not always the case. See the Alternative DiY section for more information on this type of activism.

3) Revolutionary activism that is concerned with fundamental change of society and its major institutions.

This type of activism seeks to fundamentally change the dominant system to a new way of living and is not particularly concerned with reforms and piecemeal changes in the long term.

It is not unusual for these types of activism to overlap and sometimes within the same campaign. For example, an anarchist group may wish to see the destruction of capitalism and will work towards that; they may also run social centres or food co-operatives and protest against changes to policies that currently affect their lives.

There are many who believe that capitalism is the main issue that dominates activism today and that it is the cause of many of the issues that groups campaign against. This can be seen as true depending upon your political leanings, although it would be hard to deny that the profit motive and the drive for endless growth have not impacted on the world and most of its inhabitants. If our aim is the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a more sustainable system, then this raises real questions of how society should be run whilst adhering to more equitable principles. Arguably, this may be the most important role for activism in the future.

'The Blessed Unrest.' Is there a social movement of movements?

So does activism have an impact on the world?

"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead, US anthropologist (1901 - 1978)

Paul Hawken highlights the scale of action that is occurring worldwide in his book Blessed Unrest where he estimates that there are over one-million groups working towards ecological sustainability and social justice in the world today. Hawken views this movement as a complex coalition of human organisations all working towards improving the world for the better. Many of these people struggle against oppression do not view themselves as activists or political, yet through their actions they clearly are fighting injustice and exploitation. Through writing his book he learned the following,

"Part of what I learned concerns an older quiescent history that is remerging, what poet Gary Snyder calls the great underground, a current of humanity that dates back to the Palaeolithic. Its lineage can be traced back to healers, priestesses, philosophers, monks, rabbis, poets and artists who speak for the planet, and other species, for interdependence, a life that courses under and through and around empires." (p.5)

This movement is not always overtly political and can often be focused on single issues, but often these single issues do have a wider context linked to inequality and neo-liberal capitalist economics. This is not to say that all issues are explicitly caused by economic inequality, as other issues can also cause problems, but more and more it becomes evident that many of our problems come from inequality and its intensification caused by the capitalist system.

This realisation became more evident when we saw the rise of the anti-capitalist/globalisation movements of the early 2000s, where many single issue groups came together to question the economic system. More recently the occupy Wall Street campaigns (though not resolutely anti-capitalist) are also challenging the fundamental inequalities created by the current economic system and its massive concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

There is a huge amount of activism that is occurring globally and around many issues, struggling against oppression and injustice on a local, international and global level. More and more these movements and individuals are making links with each other, as has been seen in the anti-capitalist/globalisation and other movements that feel a commonality. These movements do have successes and failures in what they wish to change, but what we can be sure of is that if they did not exist then there would definitely not be any successes.

Specific forms of activism / social movements

Activism can take many forms and can occur in various economic, political, social and work arenas. It can take the form direct action undertaking civil disobedience, protests, occupations, campaigning, boycotts and demonstrations through to more conventional activism such as lobbying, writing letters, internet activism, petitions and attending meetings.

There is also community activism which involves things such as setting up social centres, food cooperatives, housing cooperatives, building communities putting on events and promoting alternative ideas. In terms of the many issues that people in social movements are concerned with, they can be broadly classed as either environmental/ecological sustainability or social justice issues. Activism is varied and diverse, but its demands often have underlying universal themes of equality and respect.

Saul Alinsky and Rules for Radicals

In term of techniques, people can learn a lot from Saul Alinsky's book Rules for Radicals about grassroots community organising which looks at how to organise in your community. Obviously there are lots of other techniques, but these rules can also be applied to other tactics as well. We will be looking at other techniques in the future, but for now this will give you some food for thought.

These are taken direct from Rules for Radicals and they tie into the following process Agitate + Aggravate + Educate + Organize.

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.

The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. "You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."

Rule 5: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It's hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. "If your people aren't having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic."

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage."

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O'Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city's reputation.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, "Okay, what would you do?"

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don't try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. "The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength."

How to Change the World and achieve a Permanent Culture Now

Activism is a tool for achieving the world we want and need and what guides us personally at Permanent Culture Now is the ethics of permaculture:

We do not subscribe to one ideology and see that many ideologies have useful elements, but fundamentally we believe it is about being pragmatic. These ethics are pragmatic in as much as they concern developing systems where the planet and its inhabitants achieve and develop a state of well-being through using resources in a balanced way. Furthermore, resources should not be frittered away in the name of personal gain and individual profit which ultimately results in the depletion and destruction of our natural eco systems. This ultimately leads us to the need for activism.

Activism often challenges the current dominant ideology or is driven by principles that counter its negative effects. This makes it very important for establishing a Permanent Culture, as the barriers that we often come up against are protecting the interests and needs of the dominant capitalist system and the ruling elite. These interests need to be challenged in order for change to occur and activism is one way of doing this.

We have constantly been told that we need growth and that growth benefits us, yet in reality growth has disproportionately benefited the ruling elites and their corporations. Since the 1970s, we have seen no real-term increase in wages and we work longer hours with both parents often having to work. Indeed, the privatisation of our most essential resources has driven up costs of food, energy and transport which are the basics that we need to survive. That's just in privileged countries. Other parts of the world have seen huge social and environmental devastation brought about by the relentless pursuit of growth. It would be unfair to say that this growth hasn't also bought with it benefits for many people, but often at the cost of others and the environment. Even if this growth did not result in vast inequality it would still be unsustainable as we only have one planet and one planet's oil reserves.

The battle for a permanent culture is not going to be easy as we cannot have a permanent culture without redistributing wealth and resources. This will not be achieved through minor concessions as there has to be fundamental shift away from the dynamics of Capitalism and its endless drive for growth through mass consumerism. It is absolutely crucial that this changes because it is the core obstacle to a more sustainable and just future. We want just not economic unbridled growth, but growth in sustainable ways of living, growth in the well-being of people, growth in communities, growth in equality and growth in meaningful work. The list goes on.

So if we wish to make the world a better place we will need to be active in that dynamic, utilising all forms of activism to move the world towards a sustainable and just future.

References:

Blessed Unrest - Hawken

Give up Activism - Andrew X

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Introduction to Activism - Permanent Culture Now

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." G.K. Chesterton What is Activism? Activism is quite simply taking action to effect social change; this can occur in a myriad of ways and in a variety of forms. Often it is concerned with 'how to change the ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Giving to the Poor, a stencil by American street artist Above addressing the issue of homelessness. Lisbon, Portugal, 2008.

Artivism is a portmanteau word combining art and activism, and is sometimes also referred to as Social Artivism.

You Cut Art, You Cut Culture by Artica Concepts

Bomb-hugger by Banksy

Greece Next Economic Model by Bleepsgr in Athens, Greece

The term artivism in US English has its roots in a 1997 gathering of Chicano artists from East Los Angeles and the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. The words "Artivist" and "Artivism" were then popularized through a variety of events, actions and artworks via artists and musicians such as Quetzal, Ozomatli, and Mujeres de Maiz, among other East Los Angeles artists, and at spaces such as Self Help Graphics & Art.[citation needed ]

Artivism further developed as antiwar and anti-globalization protests emerged and proliferated. In many cases artivists attempt to push political agendas by the means of art, but a focus on raising awareness of social, environmental, and technological problems is also common.[citation needed ]

Besides using traditional mediums like film and music to raise awareness or push for change, an artivist can also be involved in culture jamming, subvertising, street art, spoken word, protesting, and activism. Since 2013, Cromoactivismo, a Brazilian group of women artists, works with collectives, groups and schools in direct actions using color for social change.

Artivist Eve Ensler stated:

... This passion has all the ingredients of activism, but is charged with the wild creations of art. Artivism-where edges are pushed, imagination is freed, and a new language emerges altogether." Bruce Lyons has written: "... artivism ... promotes the essential understanding that ... [humans] ... can, through courageous creative expression, experience the unifying power of love when courage harnesses itself to the task of art + social responsibility.

By 2005, the term had made its way into academic writing when Slovenian theatre scholar Aldo Milohnic used the term to discuss "autonomous ('alter-globalist', social) movements in Slovenia that attracted wide attention. In carrying out their political activity they made use of protests and direct actions, thereby introducing the 'aesthetic', willingly or not". In 2008, Chela Sandoval and Guisela Latorre published a piece on Chicano/a artivism and M. K. Asante using the term in reference to Black artists.

There is a chapter on artivism in the book It's Bigger Than Hip Hop by M. K. Asante. Asante writes of the artivist:

The artivist (artist + activist) uses their artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression-by any medium necessary. The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation.

The impact of artivism vs. conventional activism was tested in a public scientific experiment in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2018. The results, reported in the journal of Social Movement Studies, suggest that artivism may be more effective than conventional activism.

Notable artivists and self-identified artist-activists include:

Artivists often work in interdisciplinary collectives that are stand-alone' or operate as a creative part of the greater activist groups, such as Gran Fury of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP).[citation needed ] Other groups include:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Artivism is a portmanteau word combining art and activism , and is sometimes also referred to as Social Artivism . The term artivism in US English has its roots in a 1997 gathering of Chicano artists from East Los Angeles and the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico.

# data[].attributes.body
Just a youtube video displaying different kinds of artivism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiQ39t2v6u8

# data[].attributes.body
The website shows some interesting music videos.
Not only the lyrics but also the movies and music tell strong messages to us.
https://beautifulrising.org/tool/music-video

# data[].attributes.body
"Climate change data has its problems: It is often lofty and complicated, hard to digest, and even harder to conjure into feelings of urgency. But artists are stepping in to marry data with their crafts, bridging the gap between scientific information and human connection. Recognizing that people often act by heart rather than logic, these ten artists aim to help viewers understand the data while developing an emotional attachment that convinces them to do something about it—now."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Climate change data has its problems: It is often lofty and complicated, hard to digest, and even harder to conjure into feelings of urgency. But artists are stepping in to marry data with their crafts, bridging the gap between scientific information and human connection. Recognizing that people often act by heart rather than logic, these ten artists aim to help viewers understand the data while developing an emotional attachment that convinces them to do something about it-now.

Zaria Forman

Amid the dire reality of melting ice sheets and subsequent rising sea levels, Zaria Forman opts to spotlight the beauty: "A bombardment of terrifying news is paralyzing, but focusing on the positive is empowering." Forman's staggeringly realistic paintings capture the majesty and fragility of the icebergs. Look closer and you'll see the finely painted ice fjords crackling, crumbling, and melting. Still, Forman's message always leans toward hope and action. "I try to celebrate what is still here; to give viewers the sense that it is still possible to do something to protect this Earth that sustains us."

Sean "Hula" Yoro

Growing up in Hawaii, Sean "Hula" Yoro was raised to respect nature. The surfer and self-taught artist creates murals usually involving portraits on hard-to-reach locales like ship docks and dams to illustrate the changing landscape. In some cases, he paints on natural surfaces like icebergs or forest trees, letting the figures rapidly melt or get washed away by natural forces to create a sense of urgency. "The idea of my art not lasting adds another depth to the message and feels more real," says Yoro.

Jill Pelto

At 24, painter and environmental science student Jill Pelto is already establishing a new kind of art informed by scientific data and inspired by early 20th-century explorers like Edward Adrian Wilson. Pelto knows that her generation and those that follow are the ones inheriting the issues and that the research isn't always simple to digest. "I also find that many people just don't pay attention," she says. Her illustrations depict the same kind of graphs you might find in a textbook (decline in glacier mass balance; ocean acidification; deforestation) overlaid with watercolor paintings of the affected natural wonders, bringing the research to life.

PangeaSeed

Murals can transform cities and inspire change. Photographer Tre' Packard, who founded PangeaSeed with his wife to promote environmental activism through art and education, applies the same concept to ocean conservation. The organization's Sea Walls festivals, hosted in cities around the world, unite artists with scientists to create abstract street art that encourages dialogue. "I'm not delusional," says Packard. "I know we are not going to change the world, but small efforts add up. We want to lead by example."

Courtney Mattison

One of the challenges in communicating the scope of environmental change is that we mostly can't see it. With coral reefs, though, the impact is clear: The water gets warmer, the corals bleach, and unless the temperature is stabilized, they deteriorate. "It's like a city going bankrupt and letting the buildings fall apart," says former marine biology student and sculptor Courtney Mattison. Her thousand-pound ceramic reef renderings show this process starkly, with white corals mixed into the vibrantly painted and meticulously detailed pieces. She lets her fingerprints show on the stoneware and porcelain corals, speaking to our potential role in recovering the fragile ecosystems by emphasizing the human element of the work. "If people see evidence of my hands in the work, they may relate more closely," says Mattison. "I don't want it to be too literal, because the point is to spark curiosity."

Tamiko Thiel

Tamiko Thiel uses technology to illustrate the impact we have on the planet. Her Gardens of the Anthropocene virtual reality installation first appeared in Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park and depicts a world overtaken by mutated versions of regional drought-resistant plants that feed on everything in sight-phones included. As an engineer, Thiel felt compelled to include factual data, but as an artist she wanted to complete the picture and pick up where the science (which she notes is couched in conditionals) stops. The series, now on view at Stanford University, is meant to entertain while stealthily urging viewers to do their part. "Humans only change when they see no other alternative in order to survive," says Thiel.

Justin Guariglia

Justin Brice Guariglia became one of the first artists in a decade to work with NASA when he joined the group on survey flights for Operation IceBridge as an independent artist in 2015. The aerial images obtained are impressive, but Guariglia takes it a step further by transforming the photos into topographical prints that pop off the canvas through a printing process he developed. His work will be presented in West Palm Beach, Florida's Norton Museum of Art in September. This year, Guariglia also launched After Ice, a selfie app with a filter that shows how high sea levels will rise by 2080 in New York. (Spoiler alert: If you're near the city, you'll be swimming with the fishies.)

Eve Mosher

In 2007, artist Eve Mosher took to the streets of Brooklyn with a baseball field chalker to trace a 70-mile line around the city marking the projected reach of a flood that could hit the coast within three to 20 years. Mosher's HighWaterLine project simplified complex data down to a clear-cut line that hit way too close to the literal home of thousands of New Yorkers. It got attention. Then Hurricane Sandy came along and proved the predictions true. Now, HWL has grown to include workshops, community outreach, and other public art installations in cities from South Florida to England. "Art can create the space needed to go from grief and shock of what is coming to action."

Hannah Rothstein

(Courtesy of Hannah Rothstein)

"I have been worried about climate change for a long time, and when I saw the systems designed to fight it being dismantled, I felt my time to pull out the art guns had come," says illustrator Hannah Rothstein. She drew from some of the most iconic images in U.S. history-vintage National Park posters-and reimagined seven of them to resemble their fated decline for 2050, only 33 years away. Although she stays away from politics, Rothstein has been pleasantly surprised to see people sending postcards of the prints to senators. "Instead of deepening our divisions," she says. "I hope this project will inspire our country's policymakers to put politics aside and focus on the greater good."

Lisa Murray

Photojournalist Lisa Murray has seen firsthand how new weather patterns affect rural communities. She's seen women in Kenya walk hours to get water for their families following periods of intense drought; healthy villages in South Sudan going hungry after flash floods wipe away the harvest; fishing communities in Indonesia disappearing due to erosion and rising sea levels. "In the West, climate change doesn't impact on our lives the same way it does in the global South," she says. "It's easy for people to ignore it." Murray launched Faces of Change to document how environmental issues impact the lives of real people without sensationalizing or harping on the negative. " Showing the impact climate change has on everyday people and everyday life enables us to understand the consequences of a warming planet on a human level," says Murray.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
These Artists Are Trying to Make Climate Change Visceral

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Climate change data has its problems: It is often lofty and complicated, hard to digest, and even harder to conjure into feelings of urgency. But artists are stepping in to marry data with their crafts, bridging the gap between scientific information and human connection.

# data[].attributes.headline
#WalkOut Student Activism For Gun Control

# data[].attributes.subject
#WalkOut Student Activism For Gun Control

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/us/school-walkout.html
It's been really cool to see how a nationwide protest for gun laws was taken up by so many kids throughout America, and seeing such young people being a part of activism like this makes change seem more likely.

# data[].attributes.body
How artivism is being used in Spain to protest against the governments and banks.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This citizens' platform bringing together over 100 collectives came into being in 2012 in response to the first draft of the Penal Code reform, immediately followed by the Ley de Seguridad Ciudadana (Public Safety Law), both of which came into effect in July 2015.

"Our objective is to secure the repeal of these laws known as the Gag Laws," Hidalgo tells Equal Times. It is an objective that has become more viable since the recent approval in Congress of a motion to this end, put forward by the PSOE.

"Our theatre group has been one way of reaching non-activists, a way of getting the message across to them about the implications of the Gag Laws. It has staged many performances in the street, in the metro, 15M assembly spaces and occupied (spaces), parodying the absurdity of it but also its repressiveness. This has helped us to reach people that are not activists ready to take part in acts of civil disobedience but who do want to do their bit," she explains.

But the "star action" of the No Somos Delito collective was the Holograms for Freedom demonstration, "estimated to have reached over 800 million people," adds the spokesperson.

"It broke our media ceiling in Spain and around the world. We even managed to have the New York Times criticise the Gag Laws, although it didn't help much, as they weren't amended," comments Hidalgo. "But at least it made the government more careful about how it would apply them, because the world is aware that these laws exist."

Actions like those Hidalgo describes have gone from having a daily presence in the media to virtual silence.

"First of all, out of weariness. For four very intense years, people were very active and, ultimately, we didn't see any major change. Then there was the emergence of [the political group] Podemos, raising hopes like 'they're reaching the institutions and they're going to change everything'. The so-called 'city councils of change' are those bringing no change, in many cases. In Madrid, for instance, the way the liberated and occupied spaces are being treated is quite reprehensible," denounces Hidalgo.

Social space: crucial to organising a collective response

In addition to the factors highlighted by the No Somos Delito spokesperson, the disappearance of spaces where the collectives and movements born out of 15M used to meet has also been decisive.

"They were arenas of citizen empowerment, places for us to meet, create, share and use the collective imagination to fight. In 2016 alone, in Madrid, Patio Maravillas and La Morada were evicted and many others, such as La Enredadera, are under threat. They stop you from holding assemblies, demonstrations, in short, collective construction. In unity there is strength, but because there is no longer a social centre providing a common meeting space, there is no unity in our calls for action or our fights...

"What's more, the interaction there was between collectives boosted our creative capacity: if someone had an idea and we couldn't make use of it, the PAH (Mortgage Victims' Platform) could, for example. When you see other people who are as indignant as you, it empowers you, it encourages you to take part."

Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in the spring of 2008 but it was three years before the demonstration that would give rise to the 15M movement. Taking inspiration from a soleá, Flo 6x8, a group of artivists (neologism combining the words artist and activism) emerged, using flamenco as the tool for their fight.

"The bursting of the financial bubble was raising concern, as was the housing bubble that was brewing in Spain," one of its members, 'Moody's', tells Equal Times. "We use aliases as a precaution because of the legal problems our actions could bring us," he explains. "But we also want to have an educational role, that's why I decided to use the name of one of the big credit rating agencies," he adds.

At the end of 2010, they entered a branch of Santander Bank dancing the Banquero (Banker) Rumba Rave.

"Facebook censored it, alleging it violated the privacy rights of the people appearing in the video. And that gave rise to the Streisand Effect," explains Moody's. "When we started, the banks were being 'naturalised' and it was a mistake. We wanted to expose their real role in plunging people into debt. We wanted to reach the masters, not the foremen, as we say in Andalusia," he continues.

"Then - as a result of the constituent movement and the recuperation of the institutions generated by 15M - we made an exception with the action in the Andalusia parliament - when flamenco singers burst into song during the proceedings. 15M meant a before and an after," insists the artivist.

"We chose flamenco as our language not only because we love it but for its power to express, its power to voice dissent, irreverence and rebellion. It is the music of choice among the oppressed, the lower classes, contrasting with official culture. On dancing, the movement of the bodies fosters a biopolitics of resistance," he explains with fervour. "Our performances inspire the most empowered and provide them with the tools to intervene, a know-how in hostile environments. But they are not just performances, they contribute innovative elements to the traditional action of social movements," he underlines.

"A return to the streets"

"The great expectations generated by parliamentarism in the wake of the 15M movement sent social movements into a slumber. The Gag Law has also helped. And Podemos has absorbed the most mobilised people, who have gone from the street to working in the Congress and the Senate," says Moody's.

As regards the future, the spokesperson of No Somos Delito is hoping that "some or other spark will fly" with the new executive, since "it is palpable on the streets that something is going to start moving. The movements have been waiting to see how the political situation would pan out. And they have seen that the elections haven't solved anything," she says.

"Now the government is going to apply the cuts demanded by Brussels, cuts that it hasn't been able to implement for a year, as it has been a caretaker administration. I trust that people will not remain passive, otherwise we'll have to apply for asylum in some other country," she says, laughing.

"There is going to be a return to the streets. The first big demonstration of this term of office - following Rajoy's swearing in, with the abstention of the PSOE - marks the start of a new era. We have learnt our lesson: the parliamentary route can be there but our presence on the street must continue," ensures Moody's.

"The most important thing is to work towards a change of political culture in this country, because part of the population - the older people - is resisting it. They live detached from the digital culture and all it entails," concludes the artivist.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Artivism, creativity and political change in Spain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"With the 15M movement the need arose to develop innovative ways of protesting and fighting in order to rally indignant citizens who were not activists, people who were ready to take to the streets but not in the traditional way.

# data[].attributes.body
"Around the world, citizens and artists are taking action to reclaim public space from corporate outdoor advertising;  to create alternative municipal solutions that meet the needs of people and planet."

This year a global actions will be held on 23-25 march. A good opportunity to participate and do something here in Uppsala.

https://subvertisers-international.net/

# data[].attributes.body
"How an Exquisitely Designed Cart for Homeless People Inspired a Wave of Artists’ Activism

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-exquisitely-designed-cart-homeless-people-inspired-wave-artists-activism-180968519/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/feb/15/ai-weiwei-remembering-sichuan-earthquake
An article on Ai Weiwei and using art as a form of activism.

# data[].attributes.body
"The Sounds of Resistance: The Role of Music in South Africa's Anti-Apartheid Movement"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"A song is something that we communicate to those people who otherwise would not understand where we are coming from. You could give them a long political speech - they would still not understand. But I tell you: when you finish that song, people will be like 'Damn, I know where you nigga's are comin' from. Death unto Apartheid!" - Sifiso Ntuli

The history of South Africa under white British rule is marked by the existence of one of the most brutal systems of racial segregation that the world has ever known. A system by the name of Apartheid, literally meaning "separateness" in the Afrikaans language, made Africans of color aliens in their homeland. The laws of Apartheid forced millions to live in impoverished townships where they were denied the most basic human rights. Apartheid, under which the white minority held power over the entire population, was met with strong internal and external resistance, prompting global boycotts of sales and trade with South Africa. The most powerful form of resistance, however, was the refusal of South African blacks to remain prisoners in their own land.

In the 46 years that the system of Apartheid was in place, the resistance movements evolved from loosely organized unions of non-violent protestors to powerful and armed coalitions such as the African National Congress (ANC). Throughout every stage of the struggle, the "liberation music" both fueled and united the movement. Song was a communal act of expression that shed light on the injustices of apartheid, therefore playing a major role in the eventual reform of the South African government.

This paper explores the connections between music and politics as exemplified by the case of South Africa. While avoiding oversimplifications of a supposed "music revolution," it examines the resistance to Apartheid through the lens of its music. As historian Grant Olwage notes,

"There has yet been little investigation of how music was used by political movements, either within the country or in exile. In addition, little detailed research has been conducted on freedom songs, the ubiquitous but largely informal and un-professionalised genre that was probably the dominant musical medium of popular political expression" (Olwage 2004).

By attempting to understand the role that music played in the struggle against, and eventual dismantling of the Apartheid government, we can begin to understand the power that music can hold in a political context.

The liberation music of the Apartheid-era was in response to a history of oppression that dates back to long before the implementation of Apartheid. The segregation of racial groups in South Africa began with the first European settlers in 1652, when a Dutch company began using the Cape of Good Hope as a base for ships travelling trade route between Europe and Asia. The Khoi people, who practiced extensive pastoral farming (animal husbandry), were driven from their land in a series of frontier wars, replaced with European settlers' commercial farms, and used as slave labor.

The British arrived 150 years later, forcing the Dutch to migrate beyond the coast and further into African lands. During the course of the 300 year Dutch and British rule in South Africa, new racial groups developed out of the intermingling of Europeans and Africans, which would later be categorized as 'White', 'Black', 'Coloured' and 'Indian'. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold 1886 in Southern Africa came the beginning of the economic and political structure that would greatly increase the division between white and black, British and Boer, and rich and poor. The music that would follow in the next 100 years largely reflected this widening gap, and to communicate across it.

Throughout the early 1900's the British, who had gained complete rule over South Africa after the South African Wars (1879 - 1915), enacted a series of laws that were designed to perpetuate white rule by segregating racial groups. By requiring documentation to prove authorization to be or live in "white" South Africa, the introduction of Pass Laws effectively regulated the presence of blacks in urban areas. The passing of 1913 Native Land Act restricted African land ownership to 7% of the country's total land area, most of which was of poor quality and could not meet the needs of the African population.

Under the Native Urban Areas Act of 1923, Africans were allowed to reside in the cities and townships only to "minister the needs of the white population", and were returned to rural areas or imprisoned if they remained without work. In a report by the South African Native Affairs Commission in 1905, it was decided that "no native shall vote in the election of any member or candidate for whom a European has a right to vote" (SANAC, 1905: 35-6, 97). The central legislative, judicial, and administrative bodies were shared amongst the capitals of "white" South Africa, ensuring that only white South Africans would be involved in the government. These policies institutionalized racial segregation, and laid the foundation for Apartheid as well as for the resistance movements. The efforts to organize a resistance were consistently met with crushing, government-sanctioned attacks on non-violent protesters, inciting the sparks of a conflict whose intensity would increase in the following years.

As Clark and Worger describe, after three hundred years of white settlement South Africa was "divided on nearly every conceivable level." (Clark and Worger 31) The numerous racial groups we separated by race, language, wealth, politics, residence, jobs - in practically every aspect of daily life. Few could reap the rich benefits of life in South Africa under such a system, creating a instability and discontent amongst the different groups. The answer to this situation, reached by the ruling white leaders, was to "further entrench the existing divisions under an ironclad system of racial separation that would be known as Apartheid" (Clark and Worger 31).

"Apartheid was schizophrenic. If you look at apartheid as a character, he was a very schizophrenic character, one minute smiling and by the very same token, by the very same minute, murdering." - Sifiso Ntuli, "Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony"

The system of Apartheid rested on a long history of racial discrimination; though many of its policies were merely elaborations on previously established frameworks, the sheer brutality of its implementation and "overarching impact" (Clark and Worger 35) on the country signaled a monumental shift. The Afrikaner (white South Africans of Dutch, German, or French descent) Nationalist Party (NP) that was voted into power by white South Africans in 1948 were known for their "'frontier mentality" derived from years of brutal discrimination towards Africans and economic deprivation experienced by Afrikaners since the 19 th century."

Without engaging in the debate over the reasons for the implementation of Apartheid, seemingly backwards in comparison to gaining of human rights elsewhere in the world, I will examine the influential figures and policies of Apartheid, and the role of music in the progressively powerful responses of the undying resistance movements.

Hendrik Verwoerd was prime minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966. Often called the "Architect of Apartheid" for his role in the implementation of Apartheid during his tenure as Minister of Native Affairs, Verwoerd was the subject of a protest song composed by legendary composer Vuyisile Mini. The song, titled "Ndodemnyama we Verwoerd" ("Watch Out, Verwoerd") became one of the most popular songs in South Africa. Mini's soulful compositions and booming bass voice led him to emerge as one of the most powerful organizers of the resistance.

In the words of poet Jeremy Cronin "Song had become an organizer, and he was the embodiment of this reality" (Hirsch 2002). The singing of Ndodemnyama was a statement of protest and a tribute to the strength of freedom fighters."That song sounds like a fun song," said musician Hugh Masekela, "but it's really like 'Watch out Verwoerd, here comes the black man, your days are over" (Hirsch 2002).

Known as "the organizer of the unorganized," Mini was actively involved with the ANC and was one of the first to be recruited into its military inception in 1961. He was arrested in 1963 for "political crimes," including sabotage and complicity in the death of an alleged police informer; when he refused to give evidence against his comrades, he was sentenced to death. Fellow prisoner Ben Turok describes him as walking defiantly to the gallows while singing Ndodemnyama. Turok's recollection reads:

"And then, unexpectedly, the voice of Vuyisile Mini came roaring down the hushed passages. Evidently standing on a stool, with his face reaching up to a barred vent in his cell, his unmistakable bass voice was enunciating his final message in Xhosa to the world he was leaving. In a voice charged with emotion but stubbornly defiant he spoke of the struggle waged by the African National Congress and of his absolute conviction of the victory to come... Soon after, I heard the door of their cell being opened. Murmuring voices reached my straining ears, and then the three martyrs broke into a final poignant melody which seemed to fill the whole prison with sound and then gradually faded away into the distant depths of the condemned section" (Reddy, E.S. 1974).

The song was sung in South Africa for years after Mini's death, and is still being sung today by internationally recognized voices such as Miriam Makeba and Afrika Bambaataa.

The formally recognized opposition to Apartheid known as the ANC began in 1912 when several hundred members of South Africa's educated African elite gathered to establish a national organization to protest against racial discrimination. The meeting opened and closed with the singing of "Nkosi Sikelel'I Afrika", which was adopted as the ANC's official anthem.

Changes in African attitudes to politics were articulated by the newly radical approach of the ANC. Under the leadership of Alfred Xuma (1893 -1962), they adopted a method of non-cooperation with government, and began to link their struggle with the efforts of oppressed people globally. Xuma saw no reason to expect change from "polite requests," and as such began to mobilize what he saw as a more powerful form of resistance.

In 1944 members of the ANC such as Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu formed the established the ANC Youth League with the aim of "invigorating the national organization and developing forceful popular protests against government segregation and discrimination" (Clark and Worger 38). Though ANC demands were met with government silence, the forced removals from thriving black communities such as Sophiatown, and the brutally violent police responses to peaceful protesters led the ANC towards armed struggle.

"Sophiatown! It is not your physical beauty which makes you so loveable; not that soft line of colour which sometimes seems to strike across the greyness of your streets: not the splendour of the evening sky which turns your drabness into gold - it is none of these things. It is your people." - Trevor Huddleston, Naught For Your Comfort

Forced removals under the Group Areas Act and Bantu Resettlement Act (1954) forced millions to migrate from their homes to live in native "townships." The laws divided South Africa into zones, in which members of only one racial group could live. Most remarkable was the destruction Sophiatown, a community west of Johannesburg that is often compared to Harlem, New York City for its lively arts, politics, religion, and entertainments. In 1955, army trucks and armed police removed 60,000 people from Sophiatown by to an area designated for Africans. One white observer remarked:

"It was a fantastic sight. In the yard [opposite the local bus station] military lorries were drawn up. Already they were piled high with the pathetic possessions which had come from the row of rooms in the background. A rusty kitchen stove; a few blackened pots and bans; a wicker chair; mattresses belching out their coir stuffing; bundles of heaven-knows-what; and people, all soaked to the skin by the drenching rain" (Huddleston pp.179-80).

His observation reveals the condescension with which Africans were perceived by whites, as well as the poverty which had already swept through even the most vital communities.

Africans perceived the forced removals as a cleaning up of the country, erasing 'black spots' to make 'the picture look white.' Sophiatown was rebuilt as white suburb called Triomf, the Afrikaans word for triumph. The removals sparked the creation of a song called "Meadowlands", in reference to the Meadowlands township to which many Sophiatown residents were forced relocate.

The lyrics express the devastation of the evacuation: " we will move all night and day/to go stay in meadowlands/you'll hear the white people saying/let's go to meadowlands." Recordings by Nancy Jacobs and Sisters, as well as famed singer Miriam Makeba popularized the song, which was composed originally by Strike Vilakezi. The international performances of the song allowed international audiences a window into South Africa, and expose the injustices suffered by oppressed racial groups.

The resistance movements underwent significant changes as it began to reflect the increasingly violent struggle against white rule. The government reacted to the increasing strength (and size) of the resistance by declaring a state of emergency; they arrested approximately 18,000 demonstrators, including the leaders of the ANC and the PAC, and banned both organizations from any legal existence. Known as the Sharpville Massacre, in 1960 69 non-violent Africans were killed by government troops for protesting pass laws. This conflict became the main precursor of the transition from non-violent protest to armed struggle in 1961.

Prohibited from operating in South Africa, both the PAC and the ANC established underground organizations, and he ANC began military training outside the country. The newly formed Umkhonto we Swize, translates as Spear of the Nation, and was known as the MK. The military wing targeted specific places such as police stations and power plants, but specifically avoided taking any human lives. In an explanation of the ANC's adoption of a policy of violent resistance, Nelson Mandela says:

"...we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation and were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government" (Clark and Worger 150).

Mandela and other leaders were sentenced to life in prison, while Tambo managed to escape from South Africa and serve as president of the ANC in exile.

It was during this transition to violent resistance that music was often talked about as a "weapon of struggle." A song called "Sobashiy'abazali" ("We Will Leave Our Parents") became one of the most popular songs sung at the MK training camps. The lyrics evoke the sadness of leaving home, as well as the persistence of freedom fighters:

"We will leave our parents at home/we go in and out of foreign countries/to places our fathers and mothers don't know/Following freedom we say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye home/We are going into foreign countries/To places our fathers and mothers don't know/Following freedom" (Olwage pp. 169).

The music was more upbeat and energetic, with faster, more militaristic rhythms and accompanying marching actions as a gesture towards the marching steps of soldiers.

Toyi-Toyi, thought to originate in Zimbabwe, a classic example of this shift and became a symbol of the apartheid resistance. Usually performed in a group setting, it is a dance consisting of foot stomping and spontaneous chanting. Toyi-Toyi was often invoked during the ANC's "Amandla" chant: in call and response, the leader of a group would call out "Amandla!" ("Power") and the group would respond with "Awethu!" ("Ours").

The power of this chant builds in intensity as it progresses, and the enormity of the sounds that erupt from the hundreds, sometimes thousands of participants was often used to intimidate government troops. As one activist puts it, "The toyi-toyi was our weapon. We did not have the technology of warfare, the tear gas and tanks, but we had this weapon" (Power to the People 2008). Continued on Next Page "

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Sounds of Resistance: The Role of Music in South Africa's Anti-Apartheid Movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"A song is something that we communicate to those people who otherwise would not understand where we are coming from. You could give them a long political speech - they would still not understand. But I tell you: when you finish that song...

# data[].attributes.headline
"The woman trying to change Cuba's cultural landscape"

# data[].attributes.subject
"The woman trying to change Cuba's cultural landscape"

# data[].attributes.body
"Tania Bruguera raised more than $100,000 to open the Institute of Art Activism in Havana, where Pussy Riot are the first artists-in-residence"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the past decade, few have been more of a thorn in the side of the Cuban government than Tania Bruguera. The Havana-born artist's staging of provocative works condemning repression and championing freedom of expression in her troubled home country has repeatedly landed her in jail - including as recently as last year; in custody she has been the subject of both physical and psychological interrogation at the hands of the Cuban authorities.

But nothing, it seems, can keep Bruguera down. She is about to embark on her most politically agitative project yet - one which she hopes will change the cultural landscape of Cuba for ever.

Following an online fundraising campaign that raised more than $100,000 (£70,000), the artist is to open the Institute of Art Activism in Havana, the first "safe haven for freedom of expression" in Cuba. From September, the first artists-in-residence will be the Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot, who are no strangers to using art as a way to challenge government censorship.

With Cuba opening up to the world through restored diplomatic relations with the US and welcoming foreign corporations into the country, Bruguera said it was essential that Cubans had a place they could freely deliberate over the direction their country was heading.

"This is the moment of change in Cuba, when we have a moment as activists and artists in to challenge what is being proposed for our country," she told the Guardian. "I do believe in the power of art to change society but I know this cannot be done alone, and it takes a long time. It is now or never, and that goes beyond my personal safety, my personal quality of life."

For security reasons Bruguera would not confirm any of the programme, but she said the projects would bring together art and politics to engage and provoke a Cuban audience who had become conditioned into political apathy - and self censorship - by 57 years of cultural and political repression. In practical terms, she also wants the institute to generate jobs and help eliminate systemic political violence.

Pussy Riot said they were not going to the institute to have their own voices heard, but "to see if we can assist others in making theirs heard".

"Artists around the world are increasingly waking up to their potentialities in terms influencing social change, and power centres can often be intimidated by that - both Tania and we have experienced what that looks like," the group said.

The idea to open a permanent art institute in Cuba's capital first came to Bruguera as she was staging a political artwork in her home in Havana in 2015, where she encouraged people from her neighbourhood to read pages from Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism - a book that spoke directly to Cuba's own repressive regime.

"My neighbours were calling me crazy because the book was so clearly so critical of the Cuban government, but that moment I saw that they understood. I knew then that this was exactly what I should be doing in a sustainable and long term way. A one day performance doesn't change anything - I want to do it all the time," said Bruguera.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

Bruguera's staging of a collective reading of Hannah Arendt's book The Origins of Totalitarianism. Photograph: Instituto de Artivismo Hannah Arendt

Yet Bruguera acknowledges it will not be an easy opening an institute in direct opposition to the government's own agenda. The Cuban authorities retain strict control over the cultural landscape, banning all art and film that is "detrimental" to the image of Cuba. In the case of Bruguera, and Cuban graffiti artist El Sexto, breaking these cultural laws leads directly to prison. Obama's first visit to the country in March prompted the arrest of about 60 pro-democracy protesters, many of whom were artists and musicians.

Bruguera said a smear campaign against her had already begun: days after she launched the online fundraiser an anonymous letter was sent to Havana's artistic community that cast doubt on her motivations for the project.

The artist says she expects such intimidation tactics are "just the beginning."

However, Bruguera believes the biggest challenge is to convince Cubans from all walks of life - not just artists and intellectuals - to come through the doors of the institute without fear of retribution from government or police.

She hopes she will be able to convince one person in particular: "I would like my interrogator to come to the institute, she will be welcome," said Bruguera. "But as soon as she steps inside the institute, she is not entering as a repressor or an agent of the government or as an interrogator - she enters as a Cuban, and, just like us all, will have to respect the institute's rules of respect, transparency and equality."
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The woman trying to change Cuba's cultural landscape - and stay out of jail

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the past decade, few have been more of a thorn in the side of the Cuban government than Tania Bruguera. The Havana-born artist's staging of provocative works condemning repression and championing freedom of expression in her troubled home country has repeatedly landed her in jail - including as recently as last year; in custody she has been the subject of both physical and psychological interrogation at the hands of the Cuban authorities.

# data[].attributes.body
Who Are We? - a project at Tate Modern, London, with artist and activists from around the world, using art to bring people together. "Reflecting on identity, belonging, migration and citizenship through arts and audience participation."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Art and Migration - Who Are We? Project at Tate Exchange

# data[].attributes.body
British street artist Banksy back with a protest piece. This time the artist has a piece on Zehra Dogan, a Turkish artist who was jailed after painting the Turkish flag over a destroyed town.

Check out his social media, links in the article.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/banksy-returns-to-nyc-with-mural-protesting-imprisoned-turkish-artist-zehra-dogan/

# data[].attributes.headline
Eco-artists work to create awareness on environmental issues

# data[].attributes.subject
Eco-artists work to create awareness on environmental issues

# data[].attributes.body
The growth of eco-art has inspired artists from all over the world to start dialogue on various environmental topics.  Artists in Hong Kong have joined together to try to diminish the amounts of plastic that end up in the ocean.  Topics in eco-art range from issues on climate change to the near extinction of animal species.  This article highlights some of the work done by eco-artists worldwide.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Hongkongers using art as a weapon in the war on plastic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
More art is being created worldwide to build awareness and stimulate dialogue on environmental issues. From Hong Kong's ArtVplastic project to Disney characters in distress, we check out the latest in eco-art

# data[].attributes.headline
The sweetest civil disobedience I can think of

# data[].attributes.subject
The sweetest civil disobedience I can think of

# data[].attributes.body
You guys have all probably seen it...yarn bombing/street knitting has really taken off globally! And I think it's a nice example of how a diffuse post-political movement (mentioned in the "Building Collective Identities" reading) can get people to reconsider their social/political environment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Art, particularly in its most spontaneous and uncontrolled form, namely under-ground or street art, reflects the new "worldly" ethnic trend down to a T. One ex-ample of this plurality of global influences we find today is a quirky form of graffiti that started in the US and has spread a sense of belonging and community throughout the world, bringing a ray of sunshine to many places around the world thanks to its brightly coloured hand-knitted yarns. "Yarn bombing", or "guerrilla knitting" is the art of decorating trees, sculptures and other inanimate objects in cities with knitted or crocheted yarn. This new ecological, pacific and feminine art form is unexpected, transferring the concept of knitting from pullovers, cushions and covers for household objects to the cityscape.

Examples of this urban art first appeared in the early years of the new millennium, when the owner of a clothing store, Magda Sayeg, decided to cover the door handles of her boutique in Texas with custom-made cozies. She took her intuition and ran with it, completely covering a disused bus that is now displayed in Mexico City. Since then, styles and different techniques have evolved and this new art form has become a global phenomenon. Some of the most famous creations include Raging Bull in Wall Street by Arturo Di Modica which was yarn bombed by Agata Olek and a Fiat 500 entitled "Mi ritorni in mente" (You come back to my mind) by Giusi Mar-chetti, displayed at the annual contemporary art festival, Miniartextil. Women's groups have sprung up throughout Europe, not only in Italy, which use yarn bomb-ing as a way of adding a splash of character to urban locations and, in some cases, supporting social projects. Like "Mettiamoci una Pezza", launched in collaboration with the cultural association from l'Aquila, Animammersa, in the areas hit by the earthquake in 2009. "Mettiamoci una Pezza" is an urban knitting project that re-jects the dreariness and apathy of the institutions when faced with destruction and incompetence, literally covering the city with brightly coloured pieces of fabric sent from all over the world. After all, the real purpose of knitted objects is to create warmth and comfort and when this is transferred to the city, it connects people.

We met Licia Santuz, an Italian-born artist who has spent most of her life in other parts of the world, from Africa to Chile, but mainly in Argentina. She shared her experience as the first yarn bomber in the country with us and her personal pur-suit of beauty. She makes creations out of coloured yarns which light up the objects she covers and the faces of those who see them. A positive message that comes from an open-minded view of life.

- How did you get into yarn bombing?

I had been living in Buenos Aires for several years, we're talking pre-2010, and I remem-ber seeing a programme on the television about a girl who was knitting and covering trees. It was a revelation for me and I remembered my mother had taught me to knit. It was love at first sight. At the time I was painting a lot but I was fed up with spending so much time on my own and it was tough selling my paintings. I had to pay to get them ex-hibited and I felt they were ending up in a corner. Painting was my first love - I graduat-ed in Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile - and I still paint, as well as teaching drawing. Howev-er, I stopped then and started crocheting, I couldn't stop; if I didn't know how to do some-thing, I would learn it on YouTube. I started dressing trees with my creations, first in a friend's garden and then for a shop and, finally, in the park in the Palermo district of the city. It was an extremely beautiful and gratifying experience, people did yoga under "my" tree. It was chosen as a location for fashion photo shoots. Then I started working in other parts of the city. It's hard not to be blown away by something that is so out of place but that looks so right and so natural. I immediately realised that what I was doing gave joy to people.

- What was it like coming back to Italy? Did people react differently to your work?

I came back to Treviso about three years ago after more than thirty-five years abroad. My life hasn't always been easy, you often don't know where you belong. Some people see a South American influence in my works, unconsciously it's there. The colours I choose re-flect my mood and I love the feeling of lightness, the freedom to express myself. I've had some very positive reaction in Italy, but more resistance. I remember I went to cover a sphere outside a train station with a friend and the police turned up. After I'd explained what I was doing, the officer didn't really say much, except that his mother knitted as well. Other installations, however, have been torn or removed.

- How do you choose the places and objects you cover?

I love trees. I like covering them because they are alive, they communicate with people more than inanimate objects, like benches for instance, do. Trees talk to people, just as art does. It's as if I have an open-air art gallery. In Treviso, for example, I had great satis-faction decorating the path along the Sile River, the Restera, a place that is close to the hearts of its residents and full of trees. I also "did" lots of trees for a film starring Will Smith, Focus, and lots in orange and white for a video of a famous aperitif. But what is really gratifying is when people exclaim "this is art!" in front of a tree you have covered in the city. The most important thing for me is to make things that people wouldn't oth-erwise notice stand out, and create beauty. I'd also love to do a large installation, bigger than anything I've ever done before. In the street of course, because that's how you really get to people.

facebook knittingbaires

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Art, particularly in its most spontaneous and uncontrolled form, namely under-ground or street art, reflects the new "worldly" ethnic trend down to a T. One ex-ample of this plurality of global influences we find today is a quirky form of graffiti that started in the US and has spread a sense of belonging and community throughout the world, bringing a ray of sunshine to many places around the world thanks to its brightly coloured hand-knitted yarns.

# data[].attributes.body
"Are humans too addicted to their smartphones? I’ll leave the question hanging and point you to an art project in chat app form: Die With Me is a (paid) app that can only be used for chatting when your phone (and your interlocutors’ phones) are at 5% or less battery left."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Are humans too addicted to their smartphones? I'll leave the question hanging and point you to an art project in chat app form: Die With Me is a (paid) app that can only be used for chatting when your phone (and your interlocutors' phones) are at 5% or less battery left.

The app is an "art project", says co-creator Dries Depoorter - the artist half of the team behind Die With Me, along with web dev, David Surprenant.

It's possible the pair have inadvertently stumbled on the solution for tech addiction: Apps that only function within very specific and bounded windows.

Certainly configurable time windows in which specific apps cannot be accessed would be a handy OS feature for managing device compulsion and dialing down of an evening.

But why a battery-bounded chat app? How did they come up with the idea for Die With Me?

"I'm an artist working with technology. Most of my work is about surveillance, social media and privacy," says Depoorter. "I always try to come up with original ideas telling something about those themes" - flagging, by way of "perfect example", another of his works: A lottery ticket vending machine where you can win up to 25,000 fake followers for your Instagram and Twitter account.

He says he got lost in a city a few times after he couldn't find his way back to his hotel because his phone had died. "I think everyone with a smartphone landed in this sort of situation once. For me this was very inspiring," he adds.

"As a digital artist I really wanted to do something with this feeling. For a long time I had the technique in my head of an app that you can only use when you have less than 5% battery.

"But I had no idea to make the app interesting. Later I came up the idea to make it a public chat room."

Why did they think the idea would resonant with smartphone users? "I think because apps like this don't exist and I think it's a new feeling we all can recognize," he says. "Having a low battery on your feels.. It feels like you depended on technology."

After you've paid $0.99 to download the iOS (or Android) app - a price-tag is necessary to fund server costs for the project - you have to wait until you've got 5% or less battery left before you are able to enter a nickname into the app and be ushered into its minimalist, ephemeral public chatroom.

At this point you'll have an average of around four minutes' chat time - depending on your device and battery - before your phone literally pulls the plug on the conversation. (Or, well, I guess you could have a spare battery pack on standby and keep microdosing as the battery % dips to try to maintain the connection.)

Why did they settle on 5% exactly? "We tried to find a balance so you can use the app but you also have stress to use it," says Depoorter. "And we know for iPhone if you go less than 10% it can die every moment."

"Most of the time you end up with around 30 people in the chatroom," he adds. "They go and new people get in. Sometimes it can take a while because for some phones the prediction of the % battery is not very good. We saw people sharing tips how to stay in for a long time."

If no one else happens to be in dire battery straits when you are, and you find yourself alone in the chatroom, you can scroll back through earlier messages - or leave a message for a future transient user to find.

Not all messages are going to be nice, clearly, given the anonymous transience involved - much like reading graffiti left on the inside of a public toilet door - and some reviews do complain of racist and sexist language being bandied about. Others say the app can be hilarious.

Depoorter says his favorite chat message so far is the entirely on message observation that: " this app is like the life, new people come and go away and you forget them and when you're gone you're forgotten".

This is his favorite conversation:

- Malk (4%): actually it's a bit sad. I need my alarm clock in the morning. So when I die I have to wait for it to charge and turn on
- Pablo(3%): dont forget!
- Pablo(3%): i wont you to.lost your job !
- Malk(4%): i have none

So Is Die With Me going to live long (and they hope prosper) or is the idea for the art project to be ephemeral too - and the app wink out of existence in the not-at-all-distant future?

No straight answer from Depoorter on that but he does say they're "working hard on a few exiting big updates!", adding: "We can't tell anything :) But we can't wait to share the update!"

Presumably, given all the exclamation marks, he meant to type 'exciting' not "exiting". Albeit, either word almost works given the existential context.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Die With Me is a chat app for sharing your phone's last gasp

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Are humans too addicted to their smartphones? I'll leave the question hanging and point you to an art project in chat app form: Die With Me is a (paid) app that can only be used for chatting when your phone (and your interlocutors' phones) are at 5% or less battery left.

# data[].attributes.body
Art that achieve social change without the art itself necessarily  having a political message
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/10/562877158/dre-urhahn-how-can-public-art-projects-transform-rough-neighborhoods

# data[].attributes.headline
Provocative shortfilms as artivism "It's a woman's world - oppressed majority"

# data[].attributes.subject
Provocative shortfilms as artivism "It's a woman's world - oppressed majority"

# data[].attributes.body
This video was published about 4years ago but it is still one of the most powerful ways of enlightening a societal problem that I've ever seen. The video start around 45sec after the intro..

How might the world look today if gender roles were reversed? Is this helpful to illuminate what every-day-sexism is like for women?

https://www.thelocal.fr/20140211/video-its-a-womans-world-in-oppressed-majority

# data[].attributes.headline
Hip-hop and creativity to stand against discrimination

# data[].attributes.subject
Hip-hop and creativity to stand against discrimination

# data[].attributes.body
Through visual arts, music, writing, performing arts and more, artivists challenge status quos of inequality and promote peace, intersectionality and understanding.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Pierce Freelon uses hip-hop and creativity to stand against discrimination - The Appalachian Online

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students gathered in the Parkway Ballroom to listen to a speech on how they can use music and art to combat discrimination on Sept. 14.

# data[].attributes.body
This article is about Dave Loewenstein's artwork and how he creates art to support activists.
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2018/mar/18/e-art-activism/

# data[].attributes.body
This project is co-funded by the European Erasmus+ fund and it brings young people from 4 different European countries together to exchange there ideas and question things there concerned about, therefore giving them a chance to defend/express their believes through protests and art.

http://artivism.online

# data[].attributes.body
JR is a French activist that use photo portraits displayed in public setup to express himself, have a look at this article if that interests you !
https://www.widewalls.ch/art-rooted-in-activism-jr-feature/

# data[].attributes.headline
"Art is an important form of protest" from 50 different artists

# data[].attributes.subject
"Art is an important form of protest" from 50 different artists

# data[].attributes.body
I think the diversity of respondents in this article demonstrates not only the numerous ways and forms in which art can exist as a form of protest, but also how and why it matters for everyone, not just the artists.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Given the current political climate, we here at frieze have been reflecting on the role of art in responding to conflict. With this in mind, we invited a cross-section of artists, curators and writers to answer two deceptively simple questions: 'How important is art as a form of protest?' and 'How effective is it as a conduit of change?' Responses could take the form of a statement, an image, a film or a combination of all three. The submissions, by more than 50 respondents from over 30 countries are provocative and enlightening. Further contributions to the print version are included here, from around the world. (Click on the artist's name below to jump to their entry.)
Jonathas de Andrade
Jonathas de Andrade lives in Recife, Brazil. His video The Uprising will be on display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as part of 'Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection' which runs until 30 July. His solo show, 'O Peixe', at the New Museum, New York, runs until 9 April. His work is included in the Sharjah Biennial until 12 June.
Art must be a sign of resistance to a political model that is increasingly hierarchical, diffuse, global and standardized. The public stage has become a sort of orchestrated video game - a frivolous, ridiculous operetta with a few recited parts that are performed daily before a people overwhelmed by the consequences of the crisis. The audience is immediately proscribed by the mass media and, therefore, defused before its fellow citizens dare 'boo' from the stands. This is the criminalization of protest, which leads to the brutalization of audiences implemented by refined political techniques - in short, to audiences that dare practise disobedience to the rules imposed by the institution, such as transgression, insubordination, the creation of new political experiences or the rehearsal of new voices. Democracy has become an aesthetic matter. I want to get away from unilateral, closed discourses affording no possibility for response, participation or interaction. We artists have a political function that requires clear ethical positions. Language can change the world - or should. This is one of the artist's most effective tools.

For the last five years, I've been working with the legendary transgender activist Paola Revenioti. Originally, my aim was to make her work known to a broader audience outside of Greece, so we began in 2013 with an interview in Candy magazine and then organized a show of her photographs at Breeder Gallery. Her work is pure protest; her magazine Kraximo (Gay Bashing) was the only outlet for reports of police brutality against LGBT+ citizens in the 1980s. There is a transcendent quality to her work, even if it's just a Facebook post, a YouTube video or an archival photograph. I don't know if showing her work in an art context would qualify as protest, but it certainly shed light on the history and current state of the fight for trans visibility and human rights. Last month, Revenioti's documentary about Dimitra, a trans woman living on the island of Lesvos, was broadcast on national television: that's a long way to go for someone whom society only expected to prostitute for a living. Change takes time, but every effort is worth it.

Two weeks after the election of Donald Trump, I held a small event in Amsterdam in a place called the Hubertus House, which was designed by the architect Aldo van Eyck in 1959. I called it An Open House. I have been working on this project for quite a long time; I was invited to do it by the curating collective If I Can't Dance I Don't Want to Be Part of Your Revolution. Van Eyck designed two interconnected buildings to host single mothers and their children in a private foundation that provided day care, as well as other support. Initially, I didn't plan to work on this project in the way that I did but after the shock of the election, I couldn't think of anything else apart from reacting somehow.

The project included 12 women, myself included, from different backgrounds and origins - we all look very different from each other. Tess van Eyck, the architect's daughter, joined us, sitting on a sofa reading her newspaper. For one hour, we all stood on the balconies of the building and behind the windows. The public was told nothing about what they might see; they were allowed access to one of the two buildings, but not the one we were occupying. We were all dressed in the 12 different colours that Van Eyck used.

Art is a discourse about aesthetics staged through aesthetics. (I use that word in the original Greek sense, referring to perceptible things, the study of which concernsthe means by which something becomes knowable to the senses.) Art's political potential derives from expanding the conditions of aesthetics, of what can be perceived, and distributing this perception in new configurations while being grounded in a set of parameters, i.e. its history, its venues and its conventions. In this sense, art modifies what is held in common, and it does this by tweaking and thereby challenging aesthetic conventions a few at a time; its movement is an improvisation within tradition, and its effect is gradual.

Art's most potent political impact is achieved by its ability to intervene within conventions that are intertwined with histories of dominance and subordination, inclusion and exclusion, denaturalizing them and, by extension, democratizing experience. But, to exist, art requires infrastructure - to call something art is to assume a massive system of institutions and professionals, buildings and bureaucracies, histories and discourses. For this reason, art can rarely, if ever, intervene in civic life on its own terms. Instead, it acts within the systems it is inextricable from - and these systems are slow to evolve. Protest, on the other hand, is an expression of institutional crisis. It is a civic act in both production and execution. Protest is quick, fluid, forceful and, by definition, it eschews the solidity of institutions. Protest appears when the social contract has been violated in some way; it defies the institution's authority to decide who has permission to speak and who does not, and the form that speech can take. Protest arises when institutions can no longer adequately contain the flow of the polis. It is a rupture and is evidence of a failure of institutions, thus it acts outside of and in opposition to institutional strictures. Protest circumvents the orderly arrangements of institutions; it does not negotiate with institutional parameters as art does; it does not tweak its rules, it refuses them on the basis of their corruption. Protest is a means to become a public, a citizenry, outside of the avenues prescribed by institutions.

In the face of crisis, art often reverts to the false promise of institutional inclusion, for it claims, albeit tacitly, that the institutional voice can speak for the excluded: the very failure that gives rise to protest. In the moments that necessitate protest, the voice of art is insufficient at best and oppositional at worst: for, the institutional system through which it speaks is the very thing that protest questions. When art masquerades as protest, it undermines its own capacities to expand perception; but, more troublingly, it nullifies protest by creating a false representation of it, institutionalizing that which is opposed to the institution itself. The former is relatively harmless - it just results in mediocre art - but the latter is insidious, since it forecloses the pathways that only protest can open up, offering a placebo where real action is required.

In 'Art, Truth and Politics', his acceptance speech for the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, Harold Pinter observed that there is no one truth to be found in drama - there are many. 'These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other.' Not so in politics. There, he argued, truth and falsehood are mutually exclusive. Weapons of mass destruction either exist or they do not. The Bowling Green massacre either happened or it didn't. GB£350 million a week will either be spent on the National Health Service or it won't.

But, political truth can be mercurial and fragile - never more so than now, in this climate of fake news and alternative facts. Artists, like journalists and activists, need to define the truth and defend it. If protesters get shut down, we need to amplify their voices, as Mark Wallinger did by reconstructing Brian Haw's censored Iraq War placards at Tate Britain in 2007. If governments engage in Orwellian doublespeak, we need to uphold the Quaker creed of the late US civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and 'Speak Truth to Power'. We need to do this with anger, joy, beauty and wit. Because, in the words of bell hooks: 'We cannot have a meaningful revolution without humour.'

It's time to look beyond the Eurocentric constraints of art for art's sake. The poet, cultural theorist and first Senegalese president, Léopold Senghor, described an alternative perception of art that 'assimilates beauty with goodness and especially with efficacy'. We shouldn't be afraid to be polemical. We all have a dog in this fight. Or, if we don't, we should be supporting people who do.

For me, art is first and foremost about a personal relationship to truth. Any notion of beauty springs from that premise. We cannot separate ethics from aesthetics. In this age of moral relativism, John Keats' 1819 ode has never felt so political:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Last week, we were in Italy filming the official demolition of 100 migrant boats. They arrived laden with refugees from north Africa and, while their human cargo was either sent home or absorbed into the asylum system, the vessels themselves were never returned to their owners. There has been much debate within local government about how to deal with these hulking craft that lie beached like giant mammals on the concrete forecourt of Porto Pazzallo in Sicily. It's a striking and melancholic scene. The decision to demolish them was both pragmatic as well as political. The boats are no longer sea-worthy and they are taking up valuable space in the port. But watching them being dismantled was oddly emotional. A digger can be remarkably tender when it wants to be, as it scans the wreckage for human debris, shoes, clothes and juice cartons. The demolition of these boats took a biblical 40 days and felt like an act of violence, undertaken by the state against objects that speak of culture and loss. We have forensically recorded this destruction. It may not be art. Perhaps it's just a memory of something.

To resist is not enough. Use chants as if they were drums to spread the waves of commitment and slogans to highlight all the things that are wrong. But the streets are not enough. Be an active individual: it shows them you are not afraid. Learn the language of power, use the verbs they are scared of, publicly unveil their worst nightmares - act for them, not for us. Behave on a one-to-one scale with those you consider to be responsible. Laugh intelligently but never before you begin. Laugh after your goal is achieved, after your opposition is tricked, conflicted and incoherent because you took their power away with a simple human gesture. Don't laugh about what they do, laugh about what you were able to do to them. What we know is not enough. Be persistent without tiring others. Use forms and actions that are legible for the resistance but new to the repressors. The time you have is the time they are using to figure out how to respond. Feeling good is not enough: create a political moment.

Art is our last hope.

All art is a form of protest. Artists find the urgency to make art by identifying something in the world that doesn't yet exist, filling that fissure with images, actions or matter, and then sharing that vision with others. Whether the work is celebratory or critical of the world, if it is really art, if it is new, it must always emerge from a challenge to a world that was blindly carrying on without it, all off-kilter. Each artwork protests a lack, an imbalance, an excess in realitywhilst it performs a wonderful but awkward leap in the dark in order to 'fix' it, hoping never to be complicit with, or repeat, the reality that lay before it.

Does this mean that, by extension, today's art is always a protest against yesterday? As a conduit of change, art is highly effective but on a slow, barely perceptible level. Art changes reality by proposing new realities. Unfortunately, politicians and big business have now got wise to art's magical properties and have begun to shape new and increasingly bizarre realities, disregarding empirical truths but also - through megalomania - human rights, equality, etc. As a result, art is increasingly in the few impatient hands of the very powerful. Art as a conduit of change only functions if it is made by the powerless artist.

Art began when humans stood up. We rose from all fours, looked each other in the eye and saw visions. We opened our diaphragm to air and song; freed our hands, our most important natural tool, and got to work: the work of art. 39,900 years ago in Sulawesi, Indonesia; 37,300 years ago in El Castillo, Spain; 34,000 years ago in Chauvet, France and 9,300 years ago in Rio Pinturas, Argentina. A single handprint in Indonesia becomes a cacophony of protesting hands in Argentina. Stop. I am here. I am making a mark. I am saying I exist. I matter. We matter. We matter together.

We think appropriation works like a cocoon that wraps itself around contents and their promises. We see how academic cocoons - Migration Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies - wrap themselves around formerly activist contents, and how the same system weaves our former collective practice of research and self-organization into the cocoons of Artistic Research or Artistic Curating. We see how political and artistic practices are rigidly dissected into administratively traceable elements, surrendered for tenure-track points and fed into a register of academic property long since turned over to the efficiency Terror of economized knowledge. At the same time we see the way politically engaged art, weaved into 'Art and Activism' cocoons, finds a niche in Documenta, the biennials and issue-based exhibitions. The 'engaged' huddle at conferences in an imaginary polyphony that's really just inflationary: ten minutes of speaking time and / or three-day speech marathons, each locked into its own genre and padded for standard polemics (Israel / Palestine, Anitcapitalist / Antisemitic, utilitarian / idealistic ...). A blueprint for the politically correct Codes of Conduct of the new exploitation regime: NGO-ized, sentimentalized, wholly drained of sense, turned cynical.

'Salons, the Utopian Salon and Substantial Shops' by Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann, in Utopian Pulse Flares in the Darkroom, e dited by Ines Doujak and Oliver Ressler (2015).

Protest is important as a form of art because it can change the effectiveness of all conduits. It's our responsibility; it's our right. Now.

As part of human culture art has the power to influence society. We artists enjoy the privilege of having dedicated audiences and infinite aesthetic resources to cultivate intellectual processes that can potentially generate positive social change. An artwork doesn't necessarily have to present political references or enter a separate classification to be a part of that process. The kind of social transformation that art can generate is not measurable, as with activism. Protest is human dialogue: we can experience symbolic artworks but the final exchange comes from that dialogue, not from objects. Art is a hammer.

'How important is art as a form of protest?

Very.

'How effective is it as a conduit of change?'

It's not clear to me, to be honest, but it has to help.

Where there is injustice, it is necessary that we protest. But, seeing that making art is neither a job nor a profession, protesting injustice by using art is really difficult. For me, no more difficult than trying to make art for decorating a room. What do we want in life, individually? It would be good for me if everything I do is on the side of liberation. An interesting and full way to live.

Listen here to an excerpt of Cevdet Erek's, Room of Rhythms - Long Distance Relationship, channel no: 5, 2016, a four-minute excerpt from one of the eight sound channels used in Room of Rhythms - Long Distance Relationship (2016) for the 20th Biennale of Sydney, Australia, a work that tries to connect dance beats, and the stopping or slowing down of work, as a means of protest.

Protest in art is particularly powerful when it engages the poetic.

Less a call to arms than a challenge to feel.
A whispered reminder of what may be lost.
And what may yet be discovered.

Similarly, for art to be an important form of protest, artists have to consider what it might mean to be artists working within movements - to make and circulate work not from positions of autonomy, but from a network of positions in solidarity. What would this look like? We could follow the example set by past solidarity movements (for Palestine, against Augusto Pinochet, against apartheid) and use artworks strategically, creating shows that generate both revenue and attention. Artists could be asked to create graphics and identities for specific campaigns. Artists might also have to take uncomfortable stands against patrons who support or enact policies antithetical to free expression. Some artists may choose to use their work, exhibitions or public appearances to transmit or reinforce the messages of their movements, or to invite those movements to address spaces and audiences to which they would not otherwise have access. Some of this is already happening, of course, but in order for it to take on greater significance, disparate efforts would need to be connected, overlaps reconciled and intersections amplified: institutions will need to join individuals in building this network, though the positions they stake out within it may be quite different. So much activism has been reconfigured around intersectionalityin recent decades, not just in theory but in practice, precisely because long-term advocacy campaigns found renewed strength in connecting to other struggles; these are the examples we should be looking towards if we want to make an art of protest (or even just a protest of art, by turning the present rage for reform onto our own structural inequities) now.

As a child, I never experienced protest: my parents were doctors in the army. When I was five years old, my father would tie my arms behind my back for two hours whenever I drew or painted on the walls of our family apartment. He had been posted to Algeria in 1966; at the time, he was working for the Egyptian secret service. I never protested, nor did I ever stop drawing on walls. Today my father is 90; we are best friends and we laugh about the hand-tying days. In my adolescence, my revolt was silent: I was forced to study medicine, which I did, but during those six years I also secretly studied at the evening classes of the Cairo Fine Arts School. Only my younger brother knew about it.

Throughout my career, I have protested with my 'politically incorrect' videos and films. I was born in Cairo and we never demonstrated; we were programmed not to revolt. But, in 2011, I broke my protest virginity: I demonstrated - along with a few million other people in Egypt - after an artist friend lost his life while protesting.

Today, I am 53 years old and politically disappointed. I prefer to change the world through painting and filmmaking, fuelled by my memories of a revolt unfulfilled.

We affirm the radical nature of art. We believe that art can help counter the rising rhetoric of right-wing populism and fascism, and its increasingly stark expressions of xenophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia and unapologetic intolerance.

We know that freedom is never granted: it is won. Justice is never given: it is exacted. Both must be fought for and protected, but both have never before been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp, as at this moment.

As artists, it is our job and our duty to reimagine and reinvent social relations threatened by right-wing populist rule. It is our responsibility to stand in solidarity. We will not go quietly. It is our role and our opportunity, using our own particular forms and public spaces, to engage people in thinking together and debating ideas, with clarity and openness.

If we do not protest, can it be assumed that we concur?

Most of the work I have made during the past 40 years exists because of my desire to protest against the injustice of inequality and invisibility. Protest must lead to conversation then, inevitably, to compromise, but change happens eventually and the freedoms of contemporary art in tandem with the constraints of the museum have been a central part of that shift for me during the past 35 years.

Trying to measure the efficacy of art as a form of protest denotes a shared metre / conduit for change, but I don't think there's a common metrology for that kind of flux. I think however you experience art, it can provide solace, healing, a space away / to / in.

Neoliberalism functions through holding a monopoly on so-called moderate and centrist positions so that it can refer to everything that lies outside / in contradiction with / in refusal as immediately 'radical', 'extreme', 'dangerous' or 'off-centre'. Yet, neoliberalism's own extreme foundations are constantly in the process of being hidden and denied. Any resulting privilege is founded on colonialism, misogyny, racism and incarceration and is the outcome of that very complacency / denial. In order to uncover or circulate a vision that shifts neoliberalism away from a monopoly on the centre, I'd ask you / myself to judge how to act through the means you / I have: Is it your art? Are they your fists (real / imagined)? It is your privilege / power / citizenship? Is it all of these means? How do you really avoid pandering to the ongoing political project of devaluing and reducibility? How are you implicated in it?

For me, the encounter with art was transformative: from being employed as a professional soldier, I became a professional artist. Art on its own cannot do anything for society.
Bose Krishnamachari
Bose Krishnamachari is an artist and curator who lives in Mumbai, India. He is the founder and president of Kochi Biennale Foundation and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which runs until 29 March.
On 1 August 2011, the villagers - women at the forefront - cut off access to the mine's main water valve and occupied it. The occupation gradually became a permanent camp. Over the years, the population has developed forms of resistance decided upon by an Agraw: a traditional Amazigh egalitarian assembly. For more than 300 weeks now, the inhabitants of Imider take turns day and night to guard the camp.

During the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP22, which was held in Marrakech in November 2016, the Imider delegation expressed its 'unwavering solidarity' with the Standing Rock Sioux protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline: 'Like you, we are part of a confederation of native tribes. Like you, we resisted courageously. Like you, we have suffered and continue to suffer from the expropriation of our land. And, like you, we have set up a protest camp to prohibit access to our lands and resources.'

A protest that can be expressed through silence is the final word in artistic language. It was propounded by Mahatma Gandhi who was, and is, the greatest Indian thinker since Buddha. Creativity stems from silence: it can stun people into silence and, with all of its ebbs and tides, begins and ends in silence. Gandhi knew that art is an act performed in solitude so that the audience is silenced and moves towards withdrawal, boycott or non-action. Khadi - or Khaddar as we Malayalis in southern India call it - is a hand-woven cloth. It is spun into yarn on a wheel called a charkha: a silent, productive object which, during the fight for independence, became a symbol of resilience to undemocratic rule and oppression by colonizers. It was art-making in its finest form. The spinning of the yarn had a simple message: let me be, so long as I let you be.

Imagine you were an anti-colonial proletarian. Imagine you were angry. Imagine you were in a protest against authority. Play The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night at a relatively low volume, pretending it is from the military speakers 200 metres away.

Protest is a big part of my documentary photo/text/video works for, and about, class struggle. Just as important is the representation of unions in the face of invisibility, which includes pedagogy around history, current struggles and the diversity of the modern working class: it's a long list. The effectiveness of any form of protest to push for change is always a question and is not always easy to answer. But, doing nothing usually gets you nothing or worse. My view is largely from the USA, and I focus here on a host of responses to the latest rightwards move in politics. Very little protest in the arts appears to be directly connected to movement organizations. With few exceptions, there is a disconnect between groups that have been working for decades for change. Most of them relate to, use and/or commission art, but not from those with standing in our field(s), although I think we need to build bridges to other cultural workers. I recognize that making these connections can be difficult and I ought to know; for all the experience I have as an artist working with unions, it is still an uphill struggle most of the time. It would help if artists would also recognize themselves as citizens, even if undocumented.

Protest in any form visualizes conditions of precarity: in art, in language, in action, in metaphor - it's as vitalas blood. We're endlessly squinting to peer through life's pitiless fog and, whether as philosophers or policemen, every human body on this planet should juggle with problems of lost morality and hidden judgement. The contemporary global condition is a dreadful spectacle that cannot be rescinded, images that cannot be cajoled into language pleasant enough to act up with conventional restraint. How can violence take shape and consider itself flirtatious, breaking into brand new feelings that rape attention into balancing chequebooks? For those who say an artwork is not political enough: look harder, think further. We cannot live with teeth marks neatly on the median of absolutism but, instead, permit strategies of vocality that inflate and burst beyond our personal comfort zones. Protest does not implement solutions, but it does mobilize thinking beyond the chromatically ill-engaged, the etiolated and the miserly: even the provisional is a soaring proposal for re-evaluation.

For this work, we thought about the problem of the art world and its institutions as an obstacle for art to really engage with politics. Just as artworks often mock the political and economic powers, these powers mock art by placing artworks within an exclusive and elitist context, thus often disarming whatever critical content there might be. When asked to respond to a question about how art functions as a conduit of change, we felt that this issue somehow had to be addressed.

We hired several, anonymous, crowdsourced workers through an online marketplace and asked them to protest in front of their webcams. We do not know who or where they are, and we couldn't ultimately predict what would result from our request. We couldn't disagree more with some of the protesters, particularly those sympathetic to the US president, and yet we could not ignore them. Maybe the internet itself has become a form of protest to preconceived ideas of class, public space and employment?

Global information flows are unpredictable and multi-directional. Each nation has a local Reynard figure - bamboozling the origin as much as the recipient. Events occur in adjacency to remind us that double standards are global. Every community is cursed with inversion of sight: ever-larger areas of blindness.

And what is a 'Muslim', anyway? Are you one? Am I? It's now the 21st century's all-purpose container for every form of other: black, brown, migrant, woman, queer. But the definition is also always changing, while the expulsion impulse stays constant - just ask Polish Jews, Iraqi Kurds, Bengali Hindus, Turkish Armenians, Japanese Americans.

'Muslim' is not an empty container. All-purpose is not the same as empty, I think; better to say infinitely elastic, enough to be occupied positively, and hijacked negatively by, respectively, light and dark. Statistics tell another story. Thirty percent of American Muslims are white, 23 percent are African-American; 76 percent of Arab-Americans are Christian and other religions. As the poet Shame-e-Ali Nayeem says: 'Islamophobes don't care how pious you are. They don't even care if you are Muslim!'

While studying performance art, I imagined staging actions like Julia Butterfly Hill's 738 days tree-sit (1997-99). She effectively saved the 1,500 year-old California Redwood and surrounding trees from being logged and I saw it as a durational performance.

I haven't figured out how to respond to the Trump crisis with my brand of humorous/surreal/ambivalence and I'm compelled to direct all activist energy into concrete actions: calling representatives and showing up at marches and protests. But artist Rachel Mason has managed to bring some inspiring absurdist-comedy to the US's current crisis with her Future Clown persona, protesting at airports and lip-syncing the inauguration.

It's 4 February at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. I'm here to attend a tribute to David Antin, who passed away three months ago. Family and friends are gathered to pay homage to his poetry and his brilliant mind. His voice is omnipresent - talk-poems. He will be missed, I think, because though his written words will survive him, his argumentative voice was just as important a conduit for his stance on art, literature and politics.

A day later, at a movie theatre in Hollywood, I hear the voice of James Baldwin. He stands gamely at Cambridge University, debating civil rights with a conservative stiff. His dissident eloquence is a disarming weapon. The voice of the artist, again.

Art is a unique witness. It is a repository for observation. It is a mirror of the unrest and the struggle of a troubled, sometimes desperate, society. It is important for the conversations it will inspire and the conversations that inspired its making. It is a subjective time capsule. It is effective and yet, often, its greater impact will be recognizedin retrospect, when political activism and organized dissidence will have paved the way for change.

I published this statement in 1972, after 26 British soldiers shot dead 15 unarmed civilians in Derry, Ireland:

I will sign my work 'Patrick Ireland' until such time as the British military presence is removed from Northern Ireland and all citizens are granted their civil rights.
Signed,
Brian O'Doherty

This being accomplished by the Good Friday (and other) Agreements, in 2008 Patrick Ireland was ceremoniously buried in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in his 37th year.

I don't think it's a given that art is a form of protest, but every creative protest is a form of art and every platform for art can be a powerful stage for creative and effective acts.

Seeing world events unfold from South Africa, where I am currently working on a film project, provides a useful historical perspective on the question of art as a form of protest and as a conduit for change. I am reminded of the rich history of artists who took up the camera or a brush as weapons against oppression: Omar Badsha, Dumile Feni, David Goldblatt and Thami Mnyele, to name but a few. I recently visited the South African History Archive, an independent human rights organization dedicated to documenting and supporting past and contemporary struggles for justice. The incredibly rich collection of artwork as part of protest posters, pamphlets and T-shirts is a timely reminder that public space is an important exhibition space. And Bongiwe Dhlomo-Mautloa's starkly beautiful linocut for a flyer promoting a national women's unity movement shows us how necessary it is to connect different struggles and fight on all fronts at once.

Over the last few months, my thoughts keep returning to an unexpected artwork. As an instrument of provocation and dissent, Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1987) is about as blunt as it gets. I've become more and more haunted by Piss Christ's crystal-clear protest, despite the fact that the piece is at odds with my own sense of aesthetics and politics. The rising authoritarianism in the US and Europe is characterized in no small part through a rejection of facts and a destabilization of norms. In that context, I wonder whether the unambiguous provocation that is Piss Christ might be a more effective response to the political situation than the subtleties, prevarications and studied ellipticism that is the aesthetic bread-and-butter of so many critical artists.

To protest in the streets assures me that I am not alone in my anger. As old as this form of protest may seem, its still very empowering. As it is generally difficult to measure the sociological impact of contemporary art, it is even more challenging to think of art as something that must have an effect on systems beyond its own strange inherent codes and rules. Art as a form of protest is, in the worst case, a paper tiger patting itself on the back. But at its best, it has some great tools to counter injustice: caricature and farce, for example. There have always been, and still are, great and even funny options to protest in a way that only art can provide. Art can and should be much more than a comment on day-to-day politics, and I guess that's where its strength lies. From time to time it can reveal the ludicrousness of the ones who think they stand above everyone else - and that's not too bad!

In chaotic times, like the ones we are experiencing now, art in a public space can be an important form of protest.Art questions established truths and fake beliefs. It can promote a break with certainties and hierarchies. It allows us to re-invent and to discover viewpoints that are beyond the accepted discourse.

Politically charged public artworks that are presented in conventional, familiar spaces can temporarily transform the meaning of these sites. When they are altered, the narratives of power that have been assigned to them are also changed and so become debatable.

Art has its own tempo; it operates in a kind of geological time. It is through time that art nurtures a sense of discernment and endurance. Fortunately, art does not always have a direct and immediate effect on its viewers/participants. Art as protest encourages a critical view; it problematizes established interest, approved truths and immobile identities. Events and narratives that have been taken for granted can be questioned through art. The current political situation prioritizes simplistic discourse, polarizing worldviews and uncritical thinking. For this reason, it seems to me that, nowadays, art's immemorial role as a producer of critical thought should be the basic element of political protest.
SUPERFLEX Luca Vitone
Luca Vitone lives in Berlin, Germany. He teaches at the NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) in Milan, Italy, and has a retrospective at PAC (Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea) in Milan later this year.
SUPERFLEX is an artist group based in Copenhagen, Denmark. In the past year, they have had a solo show at von Bartha, Basel; staged 'One Year Project - The Liquid State' at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and created a billboard for the Hayward Gallery, London.
Dear Jennifer,

I am so sorry, but since you asked me to write about art as a form of protest, I just didn't have time to sit down and write anything. It's crazy-making, but added to an already bursting schedule and set of deadlines for an artist/professor-who-also-writes-and-makes-animations, in the past two weeks I found myself needing to participate in multiple-times-weekly actions: marches, protests, meetings about art professors in a state of emergency, meetings with students who have immigration issues, and all this on top of being asked to do other normal things (working on a book, writing another essay, doing an interview, and writing a million letters of recommendation for students.) I apologize. But I'm also in the studio every afternoon, trying to carve out space for my own work, which is shape-shifting in the contemporary political scenario - or, at the very least, it's under new pressures and vexations. But I also still deeply believe in and practise a form of art that is open, porous and questioning on many levels, yet is a distinctly different thing from political action per se. I feel privileged to be able to pursue such a form, which is filled with pleasures, problems and contradictions that are not quite the same as politics. It brings me to the heart of matters to welcome these problems.

xx amy

In attempt to ape and shape history, art as protest often revolves around the explicitly political gesture: the demonstration, the boycott, the mobilization, amongst others. 'To focus on the visible coastline of politics and miss the continent that lies beyond,' in the words of James C. Scott. His book Domination and the Arts of Resistance (1990) argues for an often over-looked area of dissent and protest: the infrapolitical jokes, folk-tales, songs, rituals, rumours - as invisible to the naked eye (like infra-red), but no less important in giving a voice to subordinate groups and challenging the official narratives of power.

Protest as disobedience is a sign of vitality, the becoming aware of the state (State) that you are in.

Art is politics. I believe that both as an individual and as a public figure every artist has a duty to take a position. Doing that as a rebel or by following the status quo is just his or her personal choice.
Translation by Massimo Palazzi

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Important is Art as a Form of Protest?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Given the current political climate, we here at frieze have been reflecting on the role of art in responding to conflict. With this in mind, we invited a cross-section of artists, curators and writers to answer two deceptively simple questions: 'How important is art as a form of protest?'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Making the Impossible Possible

The Center for Artistic Activism is a place to explore, analyze, and strengthen connections between social activism and artistic practice. Artistic activism is more than just an innovative tactic, it is an entire approach: a perspective, a practice, a philosophy. Our goal is to make more creative activists and more effective artists. We aim to win. Read more

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Center for Artistic Activism is a place to explore, analyze, and strengthen connections between social activism and artistic practice. Artistic activism is more than just an innovative tactic, it is an entire approach: a perspective, a practice, a philosophy. Our goal is to make more creative activists and more effective artists.

# data[].attributes.headline
ARTIVISM: SOUTH AFRICAN ART IN THE APARTHEID AND POST-APARTHEID ERA

# data[].attributes.subject
ARTIVISM: SOUTH AFRICAN ART IN THE APARTHEID AND POST-APARTHEID ERA

# data[].attributes.body
The importance of not to forget the past and how it this affect us all. An interesting article on activism in South Africa in the apartheid and post-apartheid era.
http://www.festival.fcat.es/en/2017/05/artivism-south-african-art-in-the-apartheid-and-post-apartheid-era/

# data[].attributes.headline
For awarness of seagrass vulnerable to climate change

# data[].attributes.subject
For awarness of seagrass vulnerable to climate change

# data[].attributes.body
Nedret Andre, a Boston artist who  brings attention to the situation in the seas.
"The interconnectedness of a vast number of species sheltered, fed and protected by seagrass habitats is inspiration for Nedret’s abstract landscapes. These quiet plants hold down 50% of the oceans CO2s and provide shoreline protection against coastal erosion. Globally we are loosing 50 football fields of seagrass a day due to reduction of water clarity."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nedret Andre, Boston, Massachusetts. 577 likes · 21 talking about this. Paintings

# data[].attributes.body
This article explains how artivism relates to a movement I am very interested in: the Degrowth movement.

Get inspired!

# data[].attributes.body
Lorenzo Quinn’s Support

“It evokes a powerful message which is that united we can make a stand to curb the climate change that affects us all, We must all collectively think of how we can protect our planet and by doing that we can protect our national heritage sites.”
https://www.dmarge.com/2017/05/lorenzo-quinn-support-venice.html

Banksy on Brexit

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/07/banksy-brexit-mural-dover-eu-flag

Ashley Lukashevsky on inspiring political resistance through illustration

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ashley-lukashevsky-motivating-political-resistance-illustration-070318

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The National School Walkout took place across the country at 10 a.m. in each time zone. The protest was sparked by last month's school massacre in Florida and fueled by years of anger about what many say are inadequate gun laws.

"This is not a matter of left versus right. This is a matter of public safety," said Cate Whitman, a junior at LaGuardia High School in New York. "We're all working together, which is something we haven't seen from the adults in a very long time."

Those participating have three main demands for Congress:

-- Require universal background checks before gun sales;

-- Pass a gun violence restraining order law that would allow courts to disarm people who display warning signs of violent behavior.

Students planned to stay outside for at least 17 minutes -- one minute for each of the 17 people killed at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School exactly one month ago.

Students at Stoneman Douglas said they were overwhelmed by the nationwide support.

There's a "sea of people everywhere. You can barely see the ground," Stoneman Douglas student Sam Zeif said. "It really shows us we're not alone."

In Hoboken, New Jersey, students chanted, "I am a bullet-free zone," and some held signs that read, "Chalk not Glocks!"

Escorted by slow-moving police cars, students from Maryland's Montgomery Blair High School marched to a Metro station, where they boarded a train to the White House.

Students covered the area in front of the White House, chanting, "We want change!"

"History has its EYES on you," one student's sign read, though President Donald Trump wasn't scheduled to be at the White House at that time.

In New York, students warned lawmakers that they are the future -- and will soon be old enough to vote officials out of office if they don't pass tougher laws.

"We are the change!" they chanted.

Walkout goes global

From Israel to Tanzania, students across the globe also left their classrooms Wednesday in solidarity with the American students' movement. In some places, students talked with teachers about "how lucky they are" that guns aren't a part of their everyday lives.

Eduard Štrébl, a senior at Walworth Barbour American International School in Israel, organized the walkout on his campus.

"I'm from Prague, Czech (Republic), and I'm not American," he said. "But to see an epidemic of school shootings in a developed country when it's so easy to limit such things, to see that there is nothing being done against that, that inspired me to organize the walkout here."

Why some students disagree

Some students chose not to walk out with their classmates -- and for different reasons.

Austin Roth, a senior at Lapeer High School in Michigan, said he's "100% supportive of those who choose to be in the national walkout to show they care about the lives lost in Florida and every other school shooting."

"However, I am not supportive of those who use a tragic event to push their political agendas, such as gun control," he said.

Instead of walking out, Austin and other young Republicans from his school gathered in the cafeteria to voice their opinions.

Austin, 17, says he's a "staunch Republican" who carries a copy of the Constitution in his pocket.

"I do support federal background checks, (and) I'm not completely against raising the age to 21" to buy firearms, Austin said.

But he said he strongly disagrees with the notion of banning assault rifles, saying they can be useful when confronted with multiple burglars or other criminals.

"Guns are not the problem. The people are the problem," Austin said.

In Minnesota, 16-year-old Noah Borba said he didn't walk out because he doesn't fully support the movement.

"Because I have yet to have heard many good ideas, the movement seems too vague for my liking, and I would not like to associate myself with something I could end up disagreeing with in the future," said the Buffalo High School sophomore.

While it would be "pretty cool" if the country banned assault rifles, "I don't think logistically it's realistic" to get rid of all the assault rifles already out there, Noah said.

Not just about school massacres

For D'Angelo McDade, a senior at North Lawndale College Prep High School in Chicago, gun violence is personal -- but not because of a shooting at school.

He was shot in the thigh as he sat on his front porch last summer, leaving bullet fragments in his body, he said. So, D'Angelo took the lead in organizing his school's walkout Wednesday.

"Many of our community members and young adults have established a sense of hopelessness and normalized the suffering that comes with gun violence," he said. "But they're ready to see a change."

Penalties for walking out

In the Atlanta suburb of Cobb County, Georgia, the school district said it will take disciplinary action against students who walk out, citing safety concerns. Those punishment could range from Saturday school to five days' suspension, per district guidelines.

The prospect deterred some students, but not all of them, Pope High School senior Kara Litwin said.

"Change never happens without backlash," she said Tuesday. "This is a movement, this is not simply a moment, and this is only the first step in our long process."

Outside Walton High School in Cobb County, some parents stood Wednesday morning with signs reading, "Children Over Guns" and "We Demand Action!"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national school walkout: students demand new gun laws - cnn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
They've had enough. Students across country walk out to demand new gun laws

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The National School Walkout took place across the country at 10 a.m. in each time zone. The protest was sparked by last month's school massacre in Florida and fueled by years of anger about what many say are inadequate gun laws. "This is not a matter of left versus right.

# data[].attributes.body
"The steps to the Pantheon were given a timely renovation this week, as 12 blocks of ice brought in from Greenland were arranged in the shape of a clock. Here, visitors watched the ice actively melting, a chilling representation of the melting of the polar icecaps."

This quotation is from the blog 'Conergy', where it is discussed that culture should be used to fight climate change. COP21 transformed Paris into an artistic expression of the effects of climate change in an attempt to raise global awareness about climate action.

https://www.conergy.com/en/blog/2015/activism-artivism-using-culture-fight-climate-change

# data[].attributes.body
A more subtle and humorous way of artivism is the focus of street artist Barbara. She changes street sign or puts responses; most of them are humorous, but some also contain political content, always directed against the influence of far right, especially the German right party, AfD.
(The article is unfortunately in German, but there are some examples of her work at the end of it).

https://www.zeitjung.de/liebeserklaerung-barbara-streetart-kunst-berlin-heidelberg/

# data[].attributes.body
Much of the artwork on the East side gallery (Berlin wall remains) has some connection to political or social events/movements. One of the most famous examples in Honecker’s kiss, which some of you will recognise:

# data[].attributes.body
To borrow the definition of artist/activist collective the Artivist Project, artivism is a way to “get important messages in front of the eyes that need to see them in a way that will make them look.”
The website illustrates an example of artivism, from influencers within Greenpeace.
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/7-beautiful-shellno-creations-show-the-power-of-artivism/

# data[].attributes.headline
"It is in the small and the simple where human scale may be found, where one mind is changed, and we begin to change the world"

# data[].attributes.subject
"It is in the small and the simple where human scale may be found, where one mind is changed, and we begin to change the world"

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ine-o-brien/art-in-fraught-times