Arts

The Iconic Photo Of The Pope With ‘Free Palestine’ Slogan

May 28, 2014 Kelly Lynn, www.mondoweiss.net Resist! Arts, Graffiti, Israel, Palestine, Pope

In an effort to resist the Bethlehem Municipality’s efforts to beautify a section of the Apartheid Wall where Pope Francis was scheduled to pass, Local activists from Aida Refugee Camp gathered to paint slogans both against Israeli occupation and welcoming His Holiness, on the eve of his arrival, on May 24th 2014. “Why do we have to make it beautiful? It’s not,” said 23-year-old Mohammed Abu Srour, one of activists involved. The group successfully maneuvered past a few PA security personnel to reach the wall and defame a newly painted military gate, a sliver of the wall and the paint-bombed sniper tower near Rachel’s Tomb. Israeli soldiers opened the gate after several minutes and activists backed off before soldiers retreated and closed the gate. One activist started again tagging, “Welcome Pope,” but was chased down the street by several Israeli soldiers who emerged from a re-opened gate. Palestinian Authority officials then addressed the Israeli soldiers at the gate, proceeding to talk for several minutes. When asked why they were present, they responded by saying they were only there to secure the visit of an Orthodox leader that day, who would eventually pass in a six car caravan through the gate around 1:10 PM.

Call For Submissions: “We All Live In Bhopal”

May 28, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Arts, Bhopal, Creative Resistance, Environment

What and where is your Bhopal? All over the world, individuals are fighting battles against corporate evasion of responsibility and prioritization of profit over human and environmental safety. We would like to hear your stories expressed through your art. Please feel free to understand and realize our theme however it inspires you. Your art will be exhibited throughout the week of the event, and can include Photography and Visual Media, Performance Art, Video, Musical Recording, Poetry, Writing & Stories. Deadline for submissions: September 1. We will respond whether we will be able to display your Art by September 15. Art must arrive in San Francisco by November 1.

Death Of A Hacktivist

May 26, 2014 Patricia Aufderheide, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Aaron Swartz, Arts, Internet Freedom

Aaron Swartz was an Internet prodigy and a trouble-maker. The new documentary The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz is not only about Swartz, but about why we should care about the issues he cared about, and the trouble that triggered his suicide. Swartz was committed to an open and secure Internet, and was acutely aware of how that openness is compromised in different ways every day. To Brian Knappenberger, the film’s director, Swartz was something of a canary in a coal mine. “We all live massively networked lives,” Knappenberger explains. “All our lives have an Internet component to them. So everyone lives online and yet no one knows how it works.” Swartz, who was only 26 when he died in 2013, was a child of the Internet. He grew up with computers and began writing code at a young age. He was a furious inventor; as a teen he helped design the web feed service RSS and the copyright licensing system Creative Commons. At 20, Swartz got rich when Reddit (the crowd-source aggregator with which he’d merged his own start-up site) was sold to Condé Nast. The film tracks the development of an extraordinary talent, who used his talents in unorthodox ways to resist both money and power. Up until his strike-it-rich moment, Swartz could have been any of a number of Silicon Valley whiz kids. But then he just walked away from the game; as his one-time girlfriend explains in the film, he wanted his work to change the world, not just make money. He couldn’t find a way to do that in start-up culture, so he headed east, and cast about for social change.

Radical Democracy: European Video Challenge

May 26, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Arts, Democracy, Europe

‘During the Gezi Park protests, we couldn’t get any information from the main national broadcasting channels, from our newspapers, from Turkish radio. It was very tragic that we watched what was happening on our streets via live camera broadcastings from Norwegian and German TV channels. Worst of all, our elderly people who have no access to internet, couldn’t get any information from their own country. They didn’t understand what was happening, why thousands of people were out protesting, shouting and dying in their country.’ ‘During the protest days, an old man came to me and asked “What is this crowd? What is happening? Did we win the World Cup?” I felt very very VERY sad, I was shocked and got very angry. That was the exact moment I decided to make a film about the press problem and the miserable situation of ordinary people in Turkey during the Gezi Park Protests.’

Yes Man Exposes Reed College’s Bad Decision

May 23, 2014 Staff, www.yeslab.org Resist! Arts, Climate Change

Graduating Reed College students and their parents gave a standing ovation Monday to an announcement by their commencement speaker that the college had decided to divest from fossil fuels. But the President and Chair of the Board of Trustees, who were sitting onstage with the speaker, quietly wrung their hands—because the announcement was a hoax, and the board had recently decided exactly the opposite. “The planet is in your hands, and if we’re going to save it we need everyone to do everything that they can. This is a revolution,” said Bonanno. Bonanno then went on to leak the false news: “Over a delicious scone and cup of coffee with President Kroger, I was very, very pleased to learn that the board of trustees of Reed College has just now decided to divest the school’s $500 million endowment from fossil fuels.” The crowd of students, faculty, and parents cheered wildly. “I was amused that they didn’t immediately correct the announcement. It must have seemed daunting to tell the truth after all those parents and graduates cheered for divestment,” said Bonanno.

Arrest Of ‘Happy’ Dancers In Iran

May 23, 2014 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Resist! Arts, Congress, Iran, Nuclear Weapons

Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay.The six Iranian youth who danced in a YouTube video to the song by Pharrell Williams "Happy", who were arrested by Iranian authorities, have now been released. But the director is still being held in custody, according to news agency reports. Well, what is all this about? Why are these six kids arrested? They certainly didn't expect to be arrested, or one thinks they wouldn't have made this YouTube video. So there's something going on within the Iranian regime, or some force within it decided to make a symbol of these kids. Here's a little bit of the video that has caused all the commotion. [video clip plays] Okay. Now joining us to try to unpack the motive behind the arrests of these young people is Trita Parsi. Trita is founder and president of the National Iranian American Council. He is an author. His books include A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran and Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S. Thanks very much for joining us, Trita.

“BP Out Of Opera” Calls On Cultural Institutions To Reject Oil Money

May 22, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Arts, Creative Resistance, Oil

On May 20, 2014, BP Out of Opera performed a ‘flash dance’ just before the screening of a BP-sponsored performance of the Royal Opera House’s La Traviata. The group objects to BP sponsorship of the arts, joining a growing chorus of artists, actors and dancers who are acting out to bring attention to the oil money that is seeping into the art world as BP and other big oil companies attempt to greenwash their image by funding cultural events. A troupe of dancers took center stage at an outdoor screening before the opera began. In a video of the dancers performance,the opera’s boldly lettered “BP Big Screens” banner provides the backdrop behind the dancers. The three minute piece uses movement to communicate a power struggle between citizens and two characters representing BP who are adorned in BP logo-shawls. This flashy logo, with its rings of green and yellow diamonds, has provided much opportunity to costumers in this movement. Nice of BP to create such a pretty design for artists to riff on. In the case of this latest performance the logo-decorated costume piece ended up at the center of a tug-of-war between artists and security guards. At the end of the routine the dancers do finally succeed in pulling the BP shawls off the villains then throw the costumes on the ground and begin to stomp. At this point an opera security guard seems to mistake the company logo for a sacred symbol and he snatches the piece of costume off the ground. The dancers succeed in liberating their personal property and end the show to audience applause.

Chilean Artist Sets Fire To $500m Worth Of Student Debt Papers

May 19, 2014 Huffington Post UK, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk Resist! Arts, Chile, Debt, Student Activism

A heap of ashes is allegedly all that remains of $500 million in “pagarés” — or debt papers — stolen and burned by a Chilean activist. A video by Francisco Tapia, aka “Papas Fritas,” went viral this week in which he confessed to burning the legal papers certifying debt owed by Universidad del Mar students and had thus liberated the students from their debt obligations. “It’s over, it’s finished,” Tapia said in his impassioned five minute video, the Santiago Time reported. “You don’t have to pay another peso [of your student loan debt]. We have to lose our fear, our fear of being thought of as criminals because we’re poor. I am just like you, living a shitty life, and I live it day by day — this is my act of love for you.” The university is still collecting on its student loans, but not without great difficulty. The destruction of the documents occurred during a “toma” — student takeover — of the campus and means the embattled university owners must now individually sue each of its students to assure debt payment — a very costly, time-consuming process, the paper reported. Tens of thousands of students flooded the streets of Chile last year, demanding education reform. Now, it seems, tensions are escalating once again.

Protest At Museum To End Oil Company Funding

May 19, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Arts, Creative Resistance, Oil, pollution

2011, Artists from art activist group Liberate Tate staged a performance in the Tate Britain on the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days. A naked member of the group had an oil-like substance poured over him by silent figures dressed in black and wearing veils, and lay in a fetal position on the floor in the middle of the exhibition Single Form. Dedicated to the human body, Single Form is one of a series of ‘BP British Art Displays’ staged throughout the galleries of Tate Britain. Liberate Tate is a network dedicated to taking creative disobedience against Tate until it drops its oil company funding. The network was founded during a workshop in January 2010 on art and activism, commissioned by Tate. When Tate curators tried to censor the workshop from making interventions against Tate sponsors, even though none had been planned, the incensed participants decided to continue their work together beyond the workshop and set up Liberate Tate.

Grace Lee Boggs, Danny Glover Object To Film Screening

May 14, 2014 Ali Abunimah, www.electronicintifada.net Resist! Arts, Detroit, Israel, Palestine

Philosopher and activist Grace Lee Boggs and actor and activist Danny Glover have denounced the inclusion of the film American Revolutionary: the Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs in a government-sponsored Israeli film festival this week. “We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, and support their call for cultural and academic boycott of Israel,” they say in a statement sent to The Electronic Intifada, co-signed with ten other individuals involved with the award-winning documentary that focuses on the life and work of the 98-year-old Boggs. “As people featured in the film … we were shocked to find the film slated to be screened at the DocAviv festival in Israel on May 13th and 15th. This was scheduled without our knowledge,” the statement notes. The authors of the statement say they asked for the film to be withdrawn but “festival organizers and film producers informed us that this was not possible and they would move forward with the screening, over our objections.” “This film uplifts the life work and legacy of Grace Lee Boggs. She has explicitly stated her support of the boycott and believes this screening is in direct contradiction to her legacy and ongoing work as a revolutionary.”

Chris Hedges: The Power of Imagination

May 13, 2014 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Create! Arts, Capitalism, Spirituality

Those in the premodern world who hoarded possessions and refused to redistribute supplies and food, who turned their backs on the weak and the sick, who lived exclusively for hedonism and their own power, were despised. Those in modern society who are shunned as odd, neurotic or eccentric, who are disconnected from the prosaic world of objective phenomena and fact, would have been valued in premodern cultures for their ability to see what others could not see. Dreams and visions—considered ways to connect with the wisdom of ancestors—were integral to existence in distant times. Property was communal then. Status was conferred by personal heroism and providing for the weak and the indigent. And economic exchanges carried the potential for malice, hatred and evil: When wampum was exchanged by Native Americans the transaction had to include “medicine” that protected each party against “spiritual infection.” Only this premodern ethic can save us as we enter a future of economic uncertainty and endure the catastrophe of climate change. Social and economic life will again have to be communal. The lusts of capitalism will have to be tamed or destroyed. And there will have to be a recovery of reverence for the sacred, the bedrock of premodern society, so we can see each other and the earth not as objects to exploit but as living beings to be revered and protected. This means inculcating a very different vision of human society.

Let The Albany Bulb Be Free!

May 7, 2014 Tatiana Makovkin, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Arts, Commons, Creative Resistance, Homelessness

The Albany Bulb is an overgrown landfill on the Western edge of the East Bay, in the San Francisco Bay Area. “The Bulb” juts into the SF Bay, surrounded on 3 sides by water. It is a green growing wildland of naturalized plants, animals and people. And it’s an organically created citizens’ gallery of outsider art featuring giant sculptural forms and colorfully painted concrete and rocks. Friends of mine have lived there, in handmade huts built from recycled materials. They were Food Not Bombs activists, musicians, and people who sought an alternative to the inhumanity of capitalist society. Now the East Bay Regional Park district (EBRPD) is moving in to sanitize the area. Residents are being harassed and evicted, art is being removed and trees cut down. Many activists and artists have lived storied lives that embue us with appreciation for the fringe-places, the edge-dwellers, the communities that thrive among the ruins and the refuse, society’s throw-away treasures. We love to find these “diamonds in the rough”, and we work and polish until the beauty shines.

Documented: A Film By An Undocumented American

May 5, 2014 Jose Antonio Vargas, www.defineamerican.com Educate! Arts, Immigrant Rights

I have spent the past two years working a feature film. What began as a documentary on the undocumented immigrant experience in America evolved into a chronicle of my life, as the more universal I tried to make it, the more personal it became. Documented, the end result, world premiered this past June at the AFI Docs Film Festival in Washington, DC. Indiewire named it "a film to watch for." Tonight, in San Francisco, CA, Define American is co-hosting the west coast premiere of Documented with FWD.us, the immigration reform initiative led by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. It's an event I hope will elevate the conversation about immigration to another level, as technology, business, and political leaders join us and begin asking themselves the questions we've been asking through our campaign. Stay tuned for more screenings this fall.

Corporate Contractors Dance For New Energy Project

May 2, 2014 Staff, www.yeslab.org Resist! Arts, Energy, Environment, Solar, Wind

"Benedict Waterman"—a crazy-haired, bespectacled official supposedly from the U.S. Department of Energy—announces a revolutionary new energy plan to convert the U.S. power grid to entirely renewable sources by the year 2030, and give ownership of the new power-generation facilities to those on whose land they're built—from Native American nations (thus serving as reparations for genocide) to anyone who puts a solar panel on his or her roof. The plan, based on a number of sources including Stanford's Solutions Project (FAQ here), would produce nearly 8 million jobs; save $530 billion per year in health-care costs alone; result in much lower eventual fuel costs and greater price stability; and provide much greater energy security. It would also reduce the risk of the climate change effects that are projected to cost the US at least $2 trillion per year by 2100 if nothing is done to address it.

Neil Young On Climate Change, Cowboy Indian Alliance

April 29, 2014 Emerson Urry, www.environews.tv Resist! Arts, Environment, Keystone XL, Protest

It’s a world issue. We’re engaged everywhere that there’s oil, everywhere that there is CO2 abuse. If we don’t change this, we’re not going to have a good place for our children or for our grandchildren or for their grandchildren to live. All of the scientific studies including studies from the United Nations special council that they put together have said this. They all agree with this. The science is with this universally. There is very little disagreement on this issue. We can’t go ahead and keep doing these destructive things to Mother Earth and allow the climate change to happen, which will destroy our way of life. Actually, carbon abuse is un-American. It destroys American business. It lowers the bottom line. Coca Cola just complained that they lost 20 percent of their bottom line because of climate change, and that’s an issue. That was on the front page of “the New York Times.” Coca Cola and 18 other major companies who are blaming climate change for their loss of revenue.

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