Arts

A New Play About Edward Snowden Opens In London

June 27, 2014 Richard Roques, www.waterlooeast.co.uk Create! Arts, Edward Snowden, Privacy, Surveillance, Whistleblowers

Edward Snowden is holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong. He has left his life in Hawaii, abandoned paradise for a life on the run. Tortured by thoughts of his girlfriend, his mother and father and the ghosts of other whistleblowers from Chelsea Manning in solitary confinement to Thomas Drake, charged with 35 years imprisonment, he waits. But will the CIA and the National Security Agency find him first? This story has not yet finished. The revelations of mass surveillance by the U.S. and British security services keep coming out. Never mind about Angela Merkel, are they listening to your conversations, reading your messages, checking your emails?

People’s Social Forums Planned Across Canada

June 24, 2014 Ana Collins, www.peoplessocialforum.org Organize! Arts, Canada, indigenous, Revolution

Indigenous histories teach us that we are all part of an intricate creation; where all beings carry their own bundle of gifts and responsibilities to creation. Our bundles help us at all times of our existence and give us tools in order to live a sustainable and fulfilling life. Creation is formed in a universal order that facilitates balance, interconnections, and happiness for all life. Essentially, creation is based on a relationship-making structure to maintain that balance and mino bemaadziwin: good way of living. The Peoples’ Social Forum, to be held in Ottawa, August 21-24, 2014, is about relationship building, bringing people together who don’t usually work together but who might be working on common causes, changing the nature of future relationships, honouring treaties, changing the structure of how things are done on this land, and respecting the teachings that the land has for us.

Save The Internet. Calling All Poets!

June 22, 2014 Staff, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Arts, Internet, Internet Freedom, Poetry

Right now the Federal Communications Commission is accepting comments from the public on its proposal for Net Neutrality. If passed, this proposal would allow corporations like Verizon and Comcast to cut deals with corporate websites in exchange for priority access to its Internet users. In other words, smaller websites, independent artists, musicians and social justice advocates who use the open Internet to reach audiences not accessible in a heavily corporatized and consolidated media would be relegated to a second-class Internet. Between now and July 15th as technical comments flood the FCC, we want to flood the Internet with Haikus. Join poets like Hakim Bellamy, Sham-e-Ali Nayem, Emmanuel Ortiz and others as we call for #InternetHaikus. Here’s how it works: 1. Write a Haiku about the Internet. What’s a haiku? Check this out! 2. Post your Haiku on Twitter and make sure to include the hashtag #InternetHaiku

15 Artful Ways To Improve Conferences

June 21, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Strategize! Arts, Community, Conferences, Creative Resistance

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org. A few weeks ago I had the honor of joining a participatory art team working to integrate culture into CommonBound, a progressive conference on the new economy. Yes, you can assume I am a bit of a facilitation dork — getting excited about both a conference and the dubious field of culture integration. But stay with me. It’s true that in certain circles there is a lot of talk about integrating arts into social change work and harnessing culture in service of our activism. But it’s mostly included as an afterthought and nobody wants to pay for it. When the talking heads on the plenary are boring, someone will ask: “Can’t we just get someone to sing a song?” Of course, that’s a setup for failure, or at least a guarantee that the benefits of having arts and cultural approaches won’t be fully realized. However, if done well, integrating culture with common conference structures — or staff meetings, skill shares or organizing events — can become both metaphor and practice for the healthier, more fulfilling world we want.

Man Arrested, Vikings Invade British Museum

June 16, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Arts, BP, Creative Resistance, Protest, United Kingdom (UK)

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org Around 200 people – many dressed as Vikings – create mobile longship in Great Court of Museum in vocal performance protest Today, hundreds of people invaded the British Museum to stage a Viking “flash-horde”, complete with a 15-metre longship. The performance was organized by theatrical protest group “BP or nor BP?” in protest at BP’s sponsorship of the Museum’s popular Vikings exhibition. Around 200 people, many of them dressed as Vikings, gathered in the Great Court of the Museum at 3.15pm. Several actors were prevented from entering the building by security, but the vast majority of participants entered without a problem, despite bag searches by security leading to long queues outside the Museum. One man, who was carrying a cardboard Viking shield painted with a large BP logo, had his shield confiscated by security guards outside the Museum. Several witnesses describe how he handed the shield over calmly, but was then approached by several police officers who told him he was breaching the peace. He asked, calmly, what exactly he was doing to breach the peace; he was simply standing quietly in a queue. Two officers then grabbed him, pushed him against a wall and arrested him without explaining exactly what offence he had allegedly committed. An observer asked the arresting officer to give his name, but the officer refused. One witness described the event as “clearly an unlawful arrest”. The man was held for a few hours and released without charge. The group have held a large number of theatrical protests in the past, including six at the British Museum. None have ever resulted in arrests before.

Climate Scientists To Turn To Poetry And Art For Outreach

June 12, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.com Educate! Arts, Climate Change, Creative Resistance, Science

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org. William Wordsworth found inspiration for his poetry in his environment, not least the “golden daffodils” he saw “beside the lake”. Then there was Winnie the Pooh who pondered a little more simply: “The more it snows (Tiddely-Pom)/ The more it goes (Tiddely-Pom)/ The more it goes on snowing.” Now scientists are being told to use art and poetry to win public support in the battle to curb climate change. Dame Julia Slingo, the chief scientist at the Met Office, has called for a radical overhaul of the way climate scientists go about their business, arguing that they need to make their reports less turgid and more engaging. “We have to look increasingly at what society requires of us… We increasingly recognise that to reach the general public we have to use all sorts of different channels of communication,” Dame Julia told a recent gathering of leading climate change scientists at the University of Exeter. “And it’s not through tables and graphs. Sometimes it is through art, through music, through poetry, and storytelling and that is increasingly something we have to think about – how we communicate in a more humanist way.

Calling ALL Knitters: Join The Rewoolution!

June 9, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Arts, Creative Resistance, Nonviolence, Peace, Protest

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org. Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action’s NO To NEW TRIDENT campaign is joining knitting needles across the sea for some major guerilla woolfare. Here are the basics: You knit a pink scarf. It gets assembled, along with other people’s scarfs, into one long section. We ship the whole thing to the United Kingdom where it joins a 7-mile long scarf stretched between the UK’s nuclear weapons factories on August 9, 2014. Then, your scarf is sent to a conflict zone to become a humanitarian blanket. Read on to learn more and get involved.

35 Years Of Radical Comics– World War 3 Illustrated: 1979–2014

June 6, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Educate! Arts, Comics, Creative Resistance

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org. Founded in 1979 by Seth Tobocman and Peter Kuper, World War 3 Illustrated is a labor of love run by a collective of artists (both first-timers and established professionals) and political activists working with the unified goal of creating a home for political comics, graphics, and stirring personal stories. Their confrontational comics shine a little reality on the fantasy world of the American kleptocracy, and have inspired the developing popularity and recognition of comics as a respected art form. This full-color retrospective exhibition is arranged thematically, including housing rights, feminism, environmental issues, religion, police brutality, globalization, and depictions of conflicts from the Middle East to the Midwest. World War 3 Illustrated isn’t about a war that may happen; it’s about the ongoing wars being waged around the world and on our very own doorsteps. World War 3 Illustrated also illuminates the war we wage on each other—and sometimes the one taking place in our own minds. World War 3 artists have been covering the topics that matter for over 30 years, and they’re just getting warmed up.

Protesters To Bring Longship Into British Museum

June 5, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Arts, BP, Creative Resistance, Protest

Theatrical protest group the Reclaim Shakespeare Company have announced plans for a mass “Viking invasion” of the British Museum to challenge BP’s sponsorship of the popular Vikings exhibition. The public are invited to join the protest, planned for Sunday June 15th at 3pm. According to the group’s website: “We are planning to bring a longship into the Great Court of the Museum, in order to give BP a Viking funeral. This is obviously completely impossible, but we’re going to do it anyway.” Anyone wishing to join the protest is invited to email info@bp-or-not-bp.org for more information, or to sign up to the Facebook event. Over 100 people have already committed to joining the June 15th “flash-horde”. This announcement is the latest in a series of performance protests by the group, who have also made a spoof Viking film based on the exhibition’s promotional trailer, launched a petition calling for an end to the British Museum’s BP sponsorship deal, and invaded the Museum itself three times whilst dressed as Vikings and Norse gods. The largest of these performance, on April 27th, was watched by hundreds of Museum-goers and was the subject of in-depth coverage by Channel 4 News.

‘Hunger Games’ Salute Used As Protest In Thailand

June 4, 2014 Jake Coyle, www.washingtonpost.com Resist! Arts, Military, Protest, Thailand

The three-finger salute from the Hollywood movie “The Hunger Games” is being used as a real symbol of resistance in Thailand. Protesters against the military coup are flashing the gesture as a silent act of rebellion, and they’re being threatened with arrest if they ignore warnings to stop. Thailand’s military rulers said Tuesday they were monitoring the new form of opposition to the coup. Reporters witnessed the phenomenon and individuals were captured on film making the raised-arm salute. “Raising three fingers has become a symbol in calling for fundamental political rights,” said anti-coup activist Sombat Boonngam-anong on his Facebook page. He called on people to raise “3 fingers, 3 times a day” — at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. — in safe public places where no police or military are present.

Artists Copyright Land To Keep Big Oil Away

June 3, 2014 Phil Irish, www.phil-irish-artist.tumblr.com Strategize! Arts, Land, Oil, Property

By copyrighting his property as an artwork, he has prevented oil companies from drilling on it. Peter Von Tiesenhausen has developed artworks all over his property in northern Alberta. There’s a boat woven from sticks that is gradually being reclaimed by the land; there is a fence that he adds to each year of his life, and there are many “watching” trees, with eyes scored into their bark. Oil interests pester him continually about drilling on his land. His repeated rebuffing of their advances lead them to move toward arbitration. They made it very clear that he only owned the top 6 inches of soil, and they had rights to anything underneath. He then, off the top of his head, threatened them that he would sue damages if they disturbed his 6 inches, for the entire property is an artwork. Any disturbance would compromise the work, and he would sue.

Opposition To Drilling Elevated To An Art Form

June 2, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Educate! Arts, Canada, Creative Resistance, Oil

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org Artist Peter von Tiesenhausen puts his imagination to work overtime when oil companies try to enter his northwestern Alberta sanctuary. He suspects he made himself as well known to industry as art markets with novel but effective methods of peaceful resistance. Von Tiesenhausen has kept wells, compressors and pipelines off his three square kilometres of fields and trees — a notable feat for his location that has attracted quiet visits from pillars of corporate Alberta. Guests have included ConocoPhillips Canada president Henry Sykes, an art collector, lawyer and son of former Calgary mayor and provincial Social Credit leader Rod Sykes. The spread von Tiesenhausen inherited from his parents, a former family farm 80 kilometres west of Grande Prairie, sits atop a natural gas hot spot known as the “deep basin.” Industry has been in aggressive growth mode in the area since Calgarian Jim Gray’s Canadian Hunter Exploration (now part of Burlington Resources, soon to merge with ConocoPhillips) discovered rich geological formations in the early 1970s.

Big Tent Activism: On Why I Painted Kevin Zeese

May 31, 2014 Robert Shetterly, www.commondreams.org Educate! Activism, Arts, Kevin Zeese, Painting

To explain why I painted Kevin Zeese as part of the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait project I want to tell two stories that would seem to have nothing to do with Kevin. The first involves hearing Rev, Joseph Lowery, the great civil rights activist, speak at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas in April of 2006 -- seven years before I had even heard of Kevin. Camp Casey was established in 2005 to support Cindy Sheehan's heroic struggle, as she camped in a ditch outside President George W. Bush's Crawford ranch, demanding that the president come out and explain to her what "noble cause" her son Casey had died for in Iraq. People came from all over the US to support Cindy. The President refused to appear. It's a sad day when a leader responsible for war cannot tell a grieving parent why her sacrifice was necessary. The encampment grew and grew, becoming a nexus of anti-war activity, networking, community building, and activist education. A stage had been built at one end of a huge circus tent for speakers & musicians. Over the few days I was there, I heard Cindy speak, as well as Diane Wilson, Ann Wright, Robert Jensen, Eliza Gilkyson, and Rev. Lowery.

FBI Files On Pete Seeger To Be Released Online

May 30, 2014 Jason Leopold, www.america.aljazeera.com Educate! Arts, FBI, Music, Pete Seeger, Surveillance

Thousands of investigative files that the FBI maintained for more than half a century on folk singer Pete Seeger are set to be released to the public online, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has told Al Jazeera. When Seeger died in January at the age of 94, dozens of journalists, researchers and curious members of the public sought his files from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI has been informing requesters that it turned over all of Seeger’s files to the NARA before his death. NARA spokeswoman Miriam Kleinman said in an interview that the archive would now seek to publish the files once it completes processing them. They are thought to total about 2,500 pages and need to be screened for information that is exempt from disclosure, as well as names and details that might be redacted to protect the identities of informants or confidential sources. “As soon as possible, NARA will post this file online,” Kleinman said. “We are waiting for review to be complete.” The NARA initially decided to release the files only to researchers on request, for a hefty administrative fee of at least $2,000. But Kleinman said public interest in the files prompted a switch in policy.

Maya Angelou Poet, Author, Civil Right Activist Dies At 86

May 29, 2014 Lyn Innes, www.theguardian.com Educate! Arts, History, Maya Angelou

The writer Maya Angelou, who has died aged 86, won acclaim for her first autobiographical memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), a scathing and sardonic indictment of the racial discrimination she experienced as a child in Arkansas and California. "If growing up is painful for the southern black girl," she wrote, "being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult." The book is also a celebration of the strength and integrity of black women such as Angelou's grandmother, who enforced the respect of white adults and endured the impudence of white children. Unlike Richard Wright's autobiographical Black Boy (1945), which has a similar setting and theme, it gives a sympathetic and compassionate account of a beleaguered black community while also humorously dramatising Angelou's need to find self-fulfilment outside it. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has had a wide appeal, particularly to younger female readers and continues to appear on school and university reading lists in the US and the UK. The critic Harold Bloom noted that Angelou achieved with the book "an almost unique tone that blends intimacy and detachment, a tone indeed of assured serenity that transcends the fearful humiliations and outrages that she suffered as a girl".

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