Watch Kamau on his new second season of “Totally Biased” on FX, Thu 11pm.

Cultural Hijack, London

Exhibition – Live-programme – CONTRAvention

Image Archive – Reading Room

---

Rethinking Intervention

Cultural Hijack presents a survey of provocative interventions which have inserted themselves into the world, demanding our attention, interrupting everyday life, hijacking, trespassing, agitating and teasing. Often unannounced and usually anonymous, these works have appropriated media channels, hacked into live TV and radio broadcasts, detourned billboards, re-appropriated street furniture, subverted signs, monuments and civic architectures, exposed corporations and tax loopholes, and revealed the absurdities of bureaucratic behaviours.

Zevs (FR), Ztohoven (CZ), Krzysztof Wodiczko (PL), Matthias Wermke & Mischa Leinkauf (DE), Voina (RU), Upper Space (UK), Gregory Sholette (US), Michael Rakowitz (US), Platform (UK), Ben Parry (UK) & Peter McCaughey (IE), Tatzu Nishi (JP), Renzo Martens (NL), Knit the City (UK), Peter Kennard (UK), Laura Keeble (UK), Allan Kaprow (US), John Jordan (UK), Tushar Joag (IN), International Peripatetic Sculptors Society (UK+), Space Hijackers (UK), Paul Harfleet (UK), EPOS 257 (CZ), Electronic Disturbance Theater (US), Nina Edge (UK), Alan Dunn (UK), Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (UK+), Paolo Cirio (IT), Leah Borromeo & Dr. D (UK), BGL (CA) 

The exhibition positions itself at the intersection between art, politics and social justice in an historical moment, as we witness a rising tide of global resistance to neoliberal capitalism through an expanding ‘movement of movements’, from Zapatismo to the Arab Spring, from alternative G8 summits to Occupy Wall Street. In the shadows of this moment, artists are joining in the writing of alternative histories, the reclamation of our rights to the city and the unfinished project of the revolution of everyday life.

In attempting to house these ideas together in an institution, we are mindful of the Architectural Association as an influential zone, where the physical future of Architecture and Urbanism is significantly shaped. We propose that the dissemination of the ideas and practices gathered for Cultural Hijack, might similarly shape the possibilities for us to occupy as yet unimagined futures, where user-generated cities and systems, that support individual and collective empowerment, become more prevalent.

Do small acts of resistance and creative disruption, build muscle that encourages an appetite for real alternatives to neoliberal capitalism or do they end point and sate such an appetite? And what of ‘commissioned resistance’, is it implicitly flawed, sponsored by the system it seeks to critique, or can it, despite its origins, have impact?

These questions & more, as well as yours, will be picked over in the CONTRAvention: 24^th - 26^th April 2013.

Just a reminder for those of you who believe we live in a post-racial color-blind society.

“Why I’d Hate to Be Asian” video, by Indiana student Samuel Hendrickson (click to view at Colorlines)

The Indiana student sparked widespread outrage this week when he posted a video listing all the reasons he wouldn’t want to be Asian.

“Most Asians look alike,” Hendrickson says in the video. “I don’t want to look like everyone else.” The video also includes dumb remarks like “If I was an Asian man, chances are I’d probably be with an Asian woman and guess what? I don’t find Asian women attractive. Kill me.”

Hendrickson’s initial apology, after the video went viral:

“Well, I’m hated by the entire Asian race apparently over a joke #bummer.”

Full story and video at Colorlines.

Click to view the art at PoliticAlabamaDesign.com

Via HuffPost:

Edward Noriega, a professor of Art and Design at Troy University in Alabama, had his artwork pulled from an exhibit earlier this month from Talladega’s Heritage Hall Museum because the directors objected to the content.

One piece featured stacked Ajax cans relabeled as an “ethnic cleanser” called “Ala, with HB 56,” a reference to the immigration crackdown passed by the Alabama legislature in 2011. Another piece shows an image of the Virgin Mary holding a dustpan and a broom in an empty office, over the title “Señora de la Limpieza,” or “Our Cleaning Lady.” An ashtray reads “Feed Me Get Out.”

But the kicker appears to have been a red square overlaid with a white swastika and the the abbreviation HB 56. The tips of the swastikas read “Presbyterian indifference, Baptist indifference, Catholic indifference, Methodist indifference.” [Full story here]

 

Billboards are everywhere in New York City. They’re on subway trains and in stations, and on top of and inside taxis. But few, if any, have been anything like a series of anonymous billboards that have popped up on bus shelters in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. They’re not selling anything but a declaration: that racism still exists… (Read more)

RISE (Racism Still Exists) project statement:

Although public commentary describes the United States as “post-racial”, racism continues to exert a very real and pervasive influence on institutional policies and processes, interpersonal interactions, neighborhood infrastructure, socioeconomic opportunities, media imagery, and more. RISE is a project designed to illuminate some of the ways in which racism operates in this country.

Note that while the authorship of this impactful billboard/poster series remains anonymous, the billboards themselves are officially sanctioned through the private advertising company contracted by the New York Metropolitan Agency (i.e. these are paid for; this is is not guerrilla billboard liberation).

Calling all activists and knowledge-seekers! Check out this free online course from the Coventry School of Art… fb.me/1FwUl5bYz—
The Yes Men (@theyesmen) October 21, 2012

CREATIVE ACTIVISM: an open class for media creators and change makers

From their site:

This class will explore the potentials of creative media activism through encouraging ‘live’ creative interventions and participation in cultural, political and social debates.

Throughout the 10 week class we will be exploring how media activists and campaigners have used their media knowledge, connections and skills to ask difficult questions, provoke debate and raise awareness of important issues and problems in their local, national and international communities. We will be putting up a number of lectures, tasks, podcasts and other resources online to help you.

It is an activity-led class where participants will be choosing an issue that is important to them and working on a series of real and situated tasks that will aim to provide them with a number of and skills and abilities.

By being run as an open community it will enable participants to constructively critique, learn from, build on and collaborate with each other to produce a body of work that will, hopefully, make a practical and positive impact on the issue the students are addressing.

If you are interested in getting involved, or just want to stay up to date with the work of this class, please join us here or post comments using the #creativact hashtag. We look forward to hearing from you.

Starting in January 2013

An aggressive campaign by Turkey to reclaim antiquities it says were looted has led in recent months to the return of an ancient sphinx and many golden treasures from the region’s rich past. But it has also drawn condemnation from some of the world’s largest museums, which call the campaign cultural blackmail…

Museum directors say the repatriation drive seeks to alter accepted practices, like a widely embraced Unesco convention that lets museums acquire objects that were outside their countries of origin before 1970. Although Turkey ratified the convention in 1981, it is now citing a 1906 Ottoman-era law — one that banned the export of artifacts — to claim any object removed after that date as its own.

Thievery and looting are wrong, Turkey says, no matter when they occurred. “Artifacts, just like people, animals or plants, have souls and historical memories,” said Turkey’s culture minister, Ertugrul Gunay. “When they are repatriated to their countries, the balance of nature will be restored.”

>>Read more

Click on image to arrange your visit now

Featuring:

• Exhibitions
• Center for Critical Studies
• Artist Residency
• Planning Your Visit
• Membership

Here’s a statement from Museum organizers, via Lawfare:

Artists’ Website Project Closes Gitmo and Replaces It With Art Museum

 On August 29^th, 2012, the website of the Guantanamo Bay Museum of Art and History was publicly launched. Designed by a group of artists from around the globe, the project creates a ‘speculative present’ in which the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facilities have been closed and replaced by an art museum whose purpose is to reflect on the history of the site.

The museum was listed as an official place on google maps ( http://goo.gl/tg72v ) and features original artworks from 6 different contemporary artists, as well as essays on Guantanamo Bay from leading contemporary scholars including Judith Butler and Derek Gregory.

Ian Alan Paul, an artist from San Francisco who coordinated and curated the project, states:

“The purpose of the project is both to explore the human rights abuses that occurred and continue to occur in Guantanamo Bay, but also to provide a space for radical imagination and potential openings and to insist that it is both possible and necessary to close the prison facility.”

The project was the result of large collaboration, with over 25 artists, writers and other volunteers contributing to the project in some way from Europe, North America and South America. Visitors to the museum were invited to plan their trip to Guantanamo Bay, become a member of the museum, apply to be an artist in residence, as well as read about the history of the museum itself.

There were over 3000 visits to the museum on the first day from 42 different countries.

Hello Champions for Workers,

COFAM nonprofit workers are deeply moved by all of the community support they have been receiving. Unfortunately, management hasn’t budged much on proposals that would be harmful to the workers and their families. They have made it clear that they aim to destroy the job securities that workers have fought for decades to get.

This would jeopardize the long-term stability of the museums which would have a negative impact on the quality of your experience when visiting the de Young and the Legion of Honor.

In response, the museum’s workers have authorized a strike if absolutely necessary. They will only use this tool once all other options are exhausted.

They still have much fighting to do before winning a fair contract. A win for these workers will set a precedent that will have far-reaching effects in our city. You can leverage your community influence to support these workers in one of the following ways:

1. The cities unions and allies will be mobilizing en masse Friday, September 7th at 6PM to takeover the de Young Museum. Your participation will show that our city will not stand idly by while its workers’ rights are under attack. RSVP here: http://on.fb.me/PK3BOq

2. We ask that you call Charlie Castillo, director of human resources, at (415) 750-3673 to let him know that you support nonprofit museum workers and that he must settle a fair contract now.

3. Spread the word about what’s going on by signing and sharing our online petition. http://chn.ge/LWndth

Onward,

COFAM Nonprofit Worker Supporters

From CBS-LA (video), via Think Mexican

During Senior Spirit Day at Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills, boys dressed up as gardeners and gang members, and one girl dressed as a pregnant woman, pushing a baby stroller.

Other students dressed in “Border Patrol” T-shirts and were photographed “arresting” their fellow students dressed as gang members.

An alum filed a complaint.  Instead of turning this into a teachable moment, the administration simply canceled the event entirely.  More

Anaheim Hills, hmm…  that’s about 15 miles from

Anaheim Police brutality protest at Disneyland after two fatal police shootings, resulting in the deaths of Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo. Photo: Creative Commons/Amber Stephens (via Colorlines, 8/3/12)