Art

AfGJ Reviews Year’s “Best” Albums For Activists

January 1, 2018 James Patrick Jordan, Afgj.org Resist! Art, Music, Political Education

It’s that time of year when we look back on the old year while entering the new. On the music front, there were many releases in 2017 to pique the interest of the socially and politically conscious. With the plethora of best album lists coming out right now, the Alliance for Global Justice has given me the thumbs up to put out our own. I hope this little guide will give you some good material to explore. This is rather long, so no need to read it all as one big piece. Glance it over and if you see something that catches your eye,check out the review, and then give the album a listen and see if you agree! Enjoy – and Happy New Year! You can support these artists best by buying your own copies of their music.

‘Protest Matters’ Museum Shows What Resistance Looks Like

December 8, 2017 John Zangas, dcmediagroup.us Resist! Art, Museums, Protests, Resistance

By John Zangas for DCMG - Washington, DC–A free exhibit called “Protest Matters” was organized by a local anthropologist to showcase items used at protests and how they promote change for public benefit. Siobhán McGuirk, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, assembled the exhibit from local activists’ contributions. A large collection of buttons, protest signs, pamphlets, political t-shirts and a puppet were on display to show what resistance looks like. The “pop-up,” or temporary, museum consisted of hundreds of items important to activists’ personal experience in movements with their own description of their meaning. It was open to the public for three days at Potter’s House, a local coffee house, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2. It’s now available for viewing online. Every item in the museum holds significance to its contributor and was created by those working directly on their causes. Many were handmade. McGuirk envisioned the museum as an instructional tool to show that protest takes many forms, including prominent public demonstrations, street protests, blockades, sign drops, or personally worn items to make a point.

The Art Of Keeping Guantánamo Open

December 7, 2017 Erin L. Thompson, creativeresistance.org Create! Art, Guantanamo, Prisons

By Erin L. Thompson for Tom Dispatch - We spent the day at a beach in Brooklyn. Skyscrapers floated in the distance and my toddler kept handing me cigarette filters she had dug out of the sand. When we got home, I checked my email. I had been sent a picture of a very different beach: deserted, framed by distant headlands with unsullied sands and clear waters. As it happened, I was looking not at a photograph, but at a painting by a man imprisoned at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. Of the roughly 780 people once imprisoned there, he is one of 41 prisoners who remain, living yards away from the Caribbean Sea. Captives from the Bush administration’s Global War on Terror began to arrive at that offshore prison in January 2002. Since Guantánamo is located on a military base in Cuba and the detainees were labeled“alien enemy combatants,” they were conveniently to be without rights under either United States or international law and so open to years of whatever their jailers wanted to do to them (including torture). President Barack Obama released 197 of them in his years in office, but was unable to fulfill the promise he made on his first day: to close Guantánamo. The man whose painting I saw has been held for nearly 15 years without trial, without even having charges filed against him. The email came from his lawyer who had volunteered to defend a number of Guantánamo detainees.

Day 10 Of Countdown To Launch: Featuring Eleanor Goldfield

December 1, 2017 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Organize! Activism, Art, Mass Movement, Media

By Popular Resistance. Eleanor Goldfield, an activist, musician, photographer and artist, has participated with Popular Resistance on various campaigns, most recently on net neutrality. She describes Popular Resistance as a resource for the movement, whether someone is participating as an independent journalist or as an organizer on any one of many issues; and she explains how Popular Resistance provides ways for people to get involved in the movement on whatever issues that person cares about. The corporate media rarely covers resistance movements, and when they do, it is often from a negative bias. Non-profits and 'activists' that maintain the status quo are more likely to receive favorable coverage, and other resources. There is a tremendous amount of resistance activity that is taking place in the United States, but many people are unaware of it.

Mexico: Indigenous Women Fight Femicide With Hip Hop

November 28, 2017 Staff, telesurtv.net Resist! Art, Hip Hop, Indigenous Women, Mexico

By Staff of Tele Sur - Through music they are denouncing the stealing of their lands and violence against women. Indigenous women arrived in Mexico City to present their work defending their territory and to denounce femicides inside and outside their communities, through hip-hop. They arrived from different parts of the country to the Chopo University Museum to talk about feminism and gender violence. Zara Monrroy, an Indigenous woman from the Comca'ac community of Punta Chueca, Sonora, said she started rapping to spread culture and tradition. She added that music has been a tool for her message to reach indigenous women since many of them do not know how to write. "Especially among young people, because there they listen to music from outside that sometimes they don't understand, because they don't speak English, but they prefer it to songs in our language." She said she spreads her experiences and the traditions of her people and the injustices that are committed especially toward women. The rapper said she uses her music to bring to other women under violence clear messages that can help them change their situation. For Monrroy, to find acceptance by the older people of her community wasn't easy. "When I started singing, there were grandmothers and grandparents who were not in agreement with the musical fusion that I was doing," she said.

Annual Indigenous Peoples’ Sunrise Gathering On Alcatraz Island

November 27, 2017 Nanette Bradley Deetz, nativenewsonline.net Create! Art, culture, Indigenous Peoples

By Nanette Bradley Deetz for Native News Online - Executive Director of International Indian Treaty Council, Andrea Carmen (Yaqui) reminded everyone that we are here to reclaim our rightful places and to commemorate truth in ceremony. “In 1637 the Governor of Massachusetts John Winthrop declared a day of celebration for the slaughter of hundreds of Pequot Indians; men, women, and children. But we are here to thank Creator for the beating of our hearts, that we still have life. In 1969 the original occupation of Alcatraz began, led by a young student at SF State Univ., Richard Oakes (Mohawk) along with many other brave and courageous students and their allies from many Indian tribes. In June of 1974 the International Indian Treaty Council was founded in Mobridge, South Dakota. I want to conclude by remembering the many contributions of the late professor and activist, Dr. Lehman Brightman who was our faculty advisor at the time, and encouraged me in 1975 to research the forced sterilization of so many of our Native women. He also introduced me to the late Bill Wahpepah. Dr. Brightman risked everything, his freedom, his home, and his family to shelter the late co-founder of AIM Dennis Banks, while he hid from authorities. My relatives, we have much to remember, and to be thankful for on this beautiful morning,” stated Carmen. Morning Star Gali (Pitt River/Apache) served as the event Mistress of Ceremony and helped organize presenters and performers for the event.

‘Catharsis On The Mall’ Promotes Healing Through Creativity And Connection

November 17, 2017 John Zangas, dcmediagroup.us Create! Art, Creativity

By John Zangas for DC Media Group - “Catharsis on the Mall” is DC’s smaller version of the Burning Man festival, held annually at the Washington Monument. With thoughtful art or theatrical displays, the organizers offer anyone who wants to come an opportunity for purification, healing and, of course, catharsis through emotional release. The main draw was supposed to be a giant 60-foot statue of a woman’s body made of opaque curved metal near the flat white stone of the Washington Monument. But the statue was one foot too high, so the permit for the shapely structure could not be secured from the National Park Service. So in its place stood a giant scaffold with banners of a woman, her body partially covered with flora. This year’s theme for Catharsis was equality embodied by the ten principles of Burning Man for community ethos and culture through visual art, music and dancing, interactive participation, and story-telling. Many people narrated their journeys and struggles in overcoming life-changing obstacles. A variety of tents, booths and art displays encouraged creativity and connective existence with the ten principles: radical inclusion, gifting, de-commodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy. A sage spoke inside a geodesic tent about relationships, intentional living and overcoming challenges while 50 or more people listened intently.

Activists Paint Anti-Pipeline Mural Outside Wells Fargo

November 10, 2017 Nuala Sawyer, earthfirstjournal.org Resist! Art, Pipelines, Protests, Wells Fargo

By Nuala Sawyer of Earth First - The Wells Fargo and Co. headquarters at 420 Montgomery St. had a colorful awakening Monday afternoon, as hundreds of activists armed with paint created a large mural on the pavement outside. The group successfully shut the street down around noon, and in the span of about two hours, painted a 35-foot blue and black “thunderbird woman” on the asphalt, with “Water is Life!” emblazoned across the top. “It was kind of a collaboration between a whole bunch of people,” Northern Ontario-based artist Isaac Murdoch tells SF Weekly. “We’ve talked about coming down to the area for a while, so we put some feelers out.” Those feelers resulted in collaborations between Bay Area group Idle No More, 350.org, and members of Greenpeace. Someone loaned Murdoch and his crew a warehouse to make their stencil, and “it came together quite easily,” he says. Murdoch and arts collective Onaman have done their fair share of art around the country, in Standing Rock and at other locations, but this was the first piece they’d painted on the street. And they had lots, and lots, of help. Around 200 people turned out for the event — more than Murdoch had anticipated. “It was the people that made this really beautiful. We were just this one big family — even just for an hour and a half. It’s really really cool. It was all sorts of people, all different kinds. We were singing songs, we were so glad to be there. It was phenomenal.”

Artist Ai Weiwei On The Ingredients For Effective Activism

October 16, 2017 Jordan Riefe, www.truthdig.com Resist! Activism, Art

By Jordan Riefe for Truth Dig - In 2003, artist and activist Ai Weiwei landed a plum commission from the Chinese government: designing the Beijing National Stadium (the “Bird’s Nest”), which became a symbol for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The government’s decision was in part due to Ai’s unique vision, honed by a decade of living and working in New York’s art scene, but it also might have been an attempt to mend fences. Ai’s father, poet Ai Qing, was a dissident who spent roughly 20 years in exile until he was reinstated following the death of Mao Zedong. Ai was raised in the dire conditions of a refugee before finally moving to Beijing in the late 1970s to study art. Although jailed by the Chinese government in 2011 for his political activism, this experience hasn’t stopped him from speaking out for human rights. In a recent interview in Beverly Hills, Ai discussed a number of subjects, including his new documentary, “Human Flow,” an intimate and epic look at the refugee crisis spanning four continents. His current refugee-themed art installation, titled “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” went up in New York City on Friday to coincide with the movie’s opening. The film opens in Los Angeles on Friday. Here, Ai tells us why “America First” represents the worst of America, and offers a peek at the ingredients of effective activism.

People Of Color Fight For Place In NY’s Money-Driven Arts Ecosystem

October 11, 2017 Maya Chung, www.indypendent.org Create! Art, New York (NY), People of Color

By Maya Chung for The Indypendent - A small number of legacy arts institutions are sweeping up vast shares of public art funding, while newer immigrant and ethnic arts groups in New York City are clamoring for the remaining resources. A new coalition of artists and advocates is pushing the city to increase access to arts dollars for those who have been left out. The group has put together a 17-page document called the People’s Cultural Plan to serve as a set of policy recommendations for the city government which, if implemented, would more definitively benefit smaller arts groups — often grassroots organizations run by immigrant or minority artists. The document comes in response to a cultural plan unveiled by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in July 2017. Called CreateNYC, the plan aims to “serve as a roadmap to a more inclusive, equitable, and resilient cultural ecosystem, in which all residents have a stake.” Those behind the People’s Cultural Plan argue that CreateNYC isn’t doing enough. And access to funding is where smaller groups suffer. According to CreateNYC, in fiscal-year 2017, $111 million of the $177 million Department of Cultural Affairs budget was granted to just 33 large institutions. These organizations are members of the Cultural Institutions Group, made up of culturally significant, generally well-established public institutions. This imbalance of funding comes at the expense of smaller, often immigrant or minority-run arts groups, which then face stiff competition for the remaining resources.

Poignant New Artwork Shows Little Boy Peering Over U.S.-Mexico Border

September 9, 2017 Lee Moran, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Art, Border, Immigration, Undocumented

By Lee Moran for The Huffington Post - “Is this boy looking over the border worried that if things get crazier on the other side, people will massively cross the border in his direction?” A street artist from France has created a thought-provoking piece of art on the U.S.-Mexico border. JR shared a snap of his new work in progress ― an enormous portrait of a young boy playing on the Mexican side of the border ― on Twitter on Wednesday. The striking image has since gone viral on Reddit.

Artists WIthdraw From Israeli Sponsored Cultural Event

August 26, 2017 Staff, www.bdsmovement.net Resist! Art, BDS, Israel

By Staff of BDS - Following a popular campaign across several countries in a matter of days, nine acts have withdrawn from the Pop-Kultur festival in Berlin due to sponsorship by the Israeli embassy. Send a letter of thanks to these principled artists for standing in solidarity with Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. Young Fathers were among the latest to withdraw, recalling their “long history of opposing any form of hatred including racism and anti-Semitism” and their support for “a peaceful solution that allows Palestinians the right to return to a safe homeland and that allows Israelis and Palestinians of all faiths (and none) to live together in peace.” Sleaford Mods announced their manager Steve Underwood would withdraw from a panel discussion at the festival. They join Syrian artists Mohammad Abu Hajar of Mazzaj Rap and DJ Hello Psychaleppo, Islam Chipsy from Egypt, Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi, UK artists Annie Goh and Iklan feat. Law Holt and the Finnish band Oranssi Pazuzu. Thurston Moore, who performed at Pop-Kultur last year, tweeted in support of these principled artists and urged the festival to withdraw “Israeli embassy sponsorship in solidarity with Palestinian call for cultural boycott.”

Delivering Art In The Empire

July 30, 2017 Hiroyuk Hamada, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Art, Propaganda, US Empire

By Hiroyuk Hamada for Counterpunch. It’s been over a couple of decades since I left the DC area. For the bulk of the time, I was like a soldier whose sole mission was the exploration of visual expression. I literally woke up with art and went to bed with art. But at some point, perhaps, my skill in finding connections among visual elements, in finding a profound perspective, started to show me a wider reality beyond the framework of commodification, consumption, hierarchy of financial power and capitalism. I am an artist who believes that the power of art can connect us to a larger framework of humanity spreading beyond the corporatism, colonialism and militarism of the empire. I believe art can capture the rare moment of our consciousness, seamlessly merging with the eternity of time and space as a part of the universe itself. For me, museums that house the epiphany of humanistic expressions are sanctuaries of our consciousness; they are that of shrines and churches for the believers; they are that of sacred grounds for those who seek humanity in our connections to nature and earth. Art can give us humility to be human, as well as courage to be human. The unfortunate attempts to replace our sanctuary of consciousness with a subserviency to the neo-feudal hierarchy of money and violence must be renounced in the strongest terms.

Caged: Life. Beyond. Bars.

June 2, 2017 Staff, www.kickstarter.com Create! Art, Mass Incarceration

By Staff of Caged - Chris Hedges has taught in America's most elite universities, including Princeton, Columbia, and New York University. It was a class at a Maximum Security Prison, however, where he found “more brilliance, literacy, passion, wisdom and integrity… than in any other classroom…” In Hedges’ class, 28 men collaboratively wrote a play in which the drama of their lives, so often portrayed by others, is finally told in their own words. Inspired by their exceptional talent, Hedges promised that he’d share their voices with the world and—somehow, someday—mount the play. Now, over three years later, Hedges, along with, Boris Franklin, the only writer who has been released from prison to date, are planning to premiere “CAGED” at The Passage Theatre in Trenton, NJ, during their Spring 2018 season.

Radical Art, Sweet Potatoes & Mainstream Parades

May 5, 2017 Eleanor Goldfied, www.vox.com Resist! Art, Climate Change, Left Politics

By Eleanor Goldfied for Occupy - The People’s Climate March was this past weekend and roughly 200,000 people descended on Washington, DC to walk along Pennsylvania Ave, past the White House and up to the Washington Monument where speakers and musicians worked the crowd in a festival like setting. And while the energy brought in particular by indigenous and frontline communities was powerful, the march felt very much like a parade and as Dissentralized Organizer Jimmy Betts put it exemplified the “messterpiece of NGO-dom.” While the Climate March garnered most if not all the media attention, the day before, activists picketed and protested outside of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - calling for an end to the blanket rubber stamping of dirty energy projects including the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Even further outside the media gaze was the Uptown Art House, a flat structure community art space where indigenous, borderlands undocumented, black, white and everyone beyond and in between gathered together to create art and share ideas and inspiration. This compilation serves as a platform for the people involved in the building of movements, in fighting the frontline battles and in walking the walk.

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