Creative Resistance

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.

Art Is Not A Crime – Another Victory For SOA Watch!

June 6, 2014 Maria Luisa Rosal, www.creativeresistance.org Organize! Creative Resistance, Latin America, School of Americas, Solidarity

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org Today, myself, along with fellow SOA Watch Activists Dominique Diaddigo-Cash, Gail Taylor and Nico Udu-gama appeared before the Washington, DC Superior Court for our arraignment hearing. We had been arrested and detained for six hours after having put up a beautiful mural with other friends and activists – about a dozen of us total – to commemorate just some of our sisters and brothers from across Latin America who have been murdered at the hands of SOA graduates. The pressure created by supporters like you made a huge difference! This is truly empowering news! Over 1,200 supporters from across the United States and Canada signed a petition asking US District Attorney Ron Machen to drop the charges, which carried a maximum penalty of 180 days in prison and a $1,000 fine. We are especially grateful to our attorney Mark Goldstone – criminal defense and constitutional lawyer – for having represented us. Today, all of the charges against us were dropped! We challenged the system and won! We felt supported by each and every one of you, as you never left our side. This is what solidarity looks like! This is what our movement is all about! You all continue to inspire us, and it is encouraging to see just how big the impact of solidarity can be when we continue to stand together and build a culture of peace and justice.

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.

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.

June 11: Support Marie Mason And All Political Eco-Prisoners

June 2, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.com Organize! Creative Resistance, Environment, Political Prisoner, Protest

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org Artist and musician Marie Mason is a loving mother of two and a long-time activist in the environmental and labor movements. In March 2008, she was arrested by federal authorities for charges related to two acts of property destruction that occurred in 1999 and 2000; no one was injured in either of them. One was on an office at Michigan State University where research into genetically modified organism (GMO) crops was being conducted by agribusiness giant Monsanto. The other attack was damage to commercial logging equipment. She accepted a plea bargain and was sentenced on February 5, 2009 to just under 22 years. She is now serving the longest sentence of any “Green Scare” prisoner. The “Green Scare” is the name given to the recent arrests of animal rights and environmental activists who have been charged with acts of economic sabotage. Federal authorities have sought outrageous sentences (often Life in prison) and have publicly and legally labeled the activists as “terrorists” – despite the fact that no one has been killed or injured in any of the acts.

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.

Not Forgotten: Street Art By School Of The Americas Watch

May 27, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Creative Resistance, Protest, School of Americas

DC activists helped kick off SOA Watch’s poster campaign to remember the martyrs and expose the killers. On Wednesday, May 14, a group of about a dozen activists came together to paste up a giant mural on the streets of the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. Though the activists were peaceful in their actions, DC police decided that political art was unacceptable in the district. After the artwork was completed, four of the activists were handcuffed, arrested and held for 6 hours before being charged with “defacing public or private property.” The charge carries a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison and a $1,000 fine. SOA Watch activists Dominique Diaddigo-Cash, Gail Taylor, Maria Luisa Rosal and Nico Udu-gama will be arraigned in US Superior Court on June 5, 2014. The best way to stand in solidarity with the targeted activists, and to push back against the criminalization of dissent, is to keep up the resistance: SOAW.org/poster Demand that the US Attorney’s Office drop the charges against our people! SOAW.org/action Visit SOAW.org/action to send a message to US District Attorney Ron Machen to say that art is not a crime. Our message is too powerful to be locked behind bars. Let’s take this negative energy and transform it, and decorate our cities with powerful art to create a culture of justice, dignity, and peace. Visit SOAW.org/poster to download the posters today and send a picture to info@soaw.org when you put it up in your town!

“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.

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.

Women’s Nepalese Sewing Collective Is Building A Refuge From Forced Marriage

May 12, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Creative Resistance, Women's Rights

Nasreen is a 23 year old business woman who has built a fair trade sewing collective based out of Kathmandu, Nepal, called Local Women’s Handicrafts, employing women from broken homes, abusive situations, extreme poverty and women with special needs. She is currently refusing her forced marriage. The marriage would most certainly put an end to Local Women’s Handicrafts and the jobs of the 20-plus women of this collective. By refusing this marriage Nasreen is now in danger and has been physically assaulted. Nasreen was born in the rural Bihar region in a village called Rajura. Bihar is known as the most corrupt state in India. At an early age, Nasreen felt the pressure of society and her family to have an arranged marriage. 57% of women in Nepal are married before the age of 18 (UNICEF). She watched her older sister enter a forced marriage and knew she would be next. Nasreen has since made it her life’s work to fight for women’s rights in Nepal. She explains, “People do not view education as important. Dowry is important. With girls and marriage it is like selling and buying. The more money the better. They are a commodity.” Women are treated as possessions and have no rights. At the age of 11 years old Nasreen met a westerner whom she befriended and he started teaching her English. Over the next 12 years he introduced her to computers and the internet, along with mathematics, philosophy, religion and the arts.

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.

Five-Day Seeger Fest: Concert And Memorial For Pete Seeger

May 7, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Educate! Creative Resistance, Music

Amanda Palmer, Anti-Flag, Toni Blackman, Tom Chapin, Steve Earle, Holly Near, Rebel Diaz, Paul Winter Consort, Peter Yarrow and others will headline a five-day Pete Seeger Tribute, Thursday, July 17th to Monday, July 21st. Pete Seeger was more than a singer and an activist, he was, and continues to be, an inspiration. From bringing songs like Guantanamera and Wimoweh to the United States to turning the traditional song I Will Overcome to We Shall Overcome and teaching it to Dr. King, Pete Seeger has truly changed the world. Seeger passed away on January 27, 2014, a short six months after the loss of his wife of seventy years, Toshi. In death, much as in life, the humble and yet larger-than-life Seeger couple continues to inspire. Their influence can be found in all genres of music, and their spirits continues to motivate community awareness and activism for social and environmental change. One of the many people whose lives the Seegers’ touched immensely was their grandson, Kitama Cahill-Jackson, who grew up in the log cabin that his grandparents literally built.

Animation Challenges Retail Industry

May 5, 2014 Joshua Graver and Maxwell Sorensen, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Creative Resistance, Minimum Wage, Organizing

Why can’t retail workers make ends meet? CUP worked with the Retail Action Project (RAP), and designers Joshua Graver and Maxwell Sorensen to make a short animation about the changing scheduling practices in the retail industry. Shifty Business helps retail workers understand that their experiences are not isolated events but a systemic approach to cost-cutting by their employers. It also helps policy makers see the effect these practices have on workers’ lives. Retail Action Project and its members are building a new movement in the retail industry to define the future of retail jobs. Workers across New York city are finding opportunities for education, networking, and career advancement through RAP membership. Their Just Hours campaign seeks to create fair and stable hours for retail workers. The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) is a nonprofit organization that uses design and art to improve civic engagement. CUP projects demystify the urban policy and planning issues that impact our communities, so that more individuals can better participate in shaping them.

BP Vikings Invade British Museum

May 4, 2014 Staff, www.CreativeResistance.org Resist! Art, Climate Change, Creative Resistance, Energy, Oil

From CreativeResistance.org: Theatrical protest group the Reclaim Shakespeare Company has invaded the British Museum and held a surprise performance challenging BP’s sponsorship of the popular Vikings exhibition. The performance aimed to point out the irony in the fact that an oil company accused of recklessly plundering natural resources is sponsoring an exhibition about some of history’s most famous looters and pillagers. The performance came shortly after the same group launched a spoof Viking film based on the exhibition’s promotional trailer, and a petition calling for an end to the British Museum’s BP sponsorship deal, which is up for renewal in 2017. A large crowd of museum-goers gathered to watch the performance. Security guards looked on, but did not interfere. After the performance, several people dressed as Vikings stayed inside the museum to hand outanti-BP flyers to the public, and the cast performed again outside the museum.

Remunicipalisation: Putting Water Back Into Public Hands

April 28, 2014 MSPAlternatives, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Creative Resistance, Food and Agriculture

Groundbreaking motion design documentary puzzle about cities reversing water privatization to regain public control. This video explores water ‘remunicipalisation’ in Buenos Aires and Paris, looking at the challenges and benefits of reclaiming public water. It calls on citizens worldwide to mobilize around this option. Do it! Remunicipalisation Works! Find more case studies on the transition from private to public water provision (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Hamilton, Canada; and a national-level experiment in Malaysia) in the book available for free download on the Municipal Services Project site. The Municipal Services Project (MSP) is a research project that explores alternatives to the privatization and commercialization of service provision in electricity, health, water and sanitation in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is composed of academics, labour unions, non-governmental organizations, social movements and activists from around the globe.

«1 2 3 4 »

Daily movement news and resources