Artists as Activists

Artists who use their artwork to relay a message about political views and/or issues important to them.

Tana Kellner “Into the Woods”

Tana Kellner “Into the Woods”

Tana Kellner “Into the Woods”

Into the Woods investigates the adaptations we must make as biological mutations, global warming and developmental pressures affect our lives. I use sardonically humorous images to illustrate these adaptations.

Tana Kellner “Requiem for September 11”

Requiem for September 11th was my response to the tragic events of September 11, 2001. For the 10 months following 911 I cut and re-assembled the ‘Portrait of Grief’ pages from New York Times. This was my way of doing something, anything about this national tragedy. As I read the sketches I cried and laughed and was saddened by so many lives cut short. I was struck by the youth of the victims and their apparent normalcy. These were not captains of industry, but ordinary people aspiring to the good life. What spoke to me most were the victims' faces, mostly smiling in snapshots of happy times.

Tana Kellner “Requiem for September 11”

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead

Kara Walker

Kara Walker (American, b. 1969) is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes that examine the underbelly of America's racial and gender tensions. Her works often address such highly charged themes as power, repression, history, race, and sexuality.

(The Art of Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love) Walker Art Center, MN

Kara Walker

Kara Walker

Guerilla Girls The Guerilla Girls are a group of

anonymous artists who fight sexism and racism in the art world. They are known for wearing gorilla masks when they perform and install artwork. They began in 1985 with a mission to promote gender and racial equality in the art world.

Feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.

Guerilla Girls

Guerilla Girls

Pastor Martin Niemoller 1892-1984

On Beautiful Engineering facebook page

Project Choices• Quilt – combine fabrics, images and text

• Collage - combine at least 3 different types of materials (paper, fabric, drawing, images etc.)

• Hanging Montage – use strips of fabric to relay your message using text, image, drawing etc.

• Sculpture - use cardboard, found objects etc. to make 3 dimensional object

Quilt: Tunisian Artist’s Blog MulticoloredPieces

Quilt :Tunisian Artist’s blog Multicolored Pieces

Quilt: Faith Reingold

Quilt:Faith Reingold

Quilt: Arpilleras from Chile (Protest quilts made during a repressive dictatorship)

Quilt: Arpillera detail

Quilt

Quilt: 3 Person Collaboration

Collage:scythemantis.deviantart.com

Collage:Malwina Chabocka

malwinart.com

Collage:Jonas Crisco

Collage

Collage

Collage

Collage

Collage: Celia Stephens ”White

Rose”

Collage:Celia Stephens “White Rose”

Hanging Montage:Nancy Spero “Hours of the Night”

Hanging Montage:Laura Summer

Hanging Montage:Taylor Callery

Hanging Montage

Hanging Montage

Sculpture-Terry Summers “Waiting Room”

• Waiting Room comes from a later installation in waste cardboard which protested against the Federal Government’s treatment of asylum seekers. Waiting 2002 comprised Waiting Room, 40 standing figures inside a chainwire compound topped with barbed wire titled, and Waiting to be Processed, 40 inverted hanging figures. All of the life-sized figures, from adults to babies, had a black card over their eyes, representing the media icon for a person whose identity is not to be revealed. It also saves us from looking into their eyes and allowing them to see our guilt and embarrassment. Many of the figures have a subtle cardboard strip pasted over the mouth area, some with simulated stitches representing the time when detainees stitched their lips together and went on hunger strike in a vain protest against the long wait for their release from custody.

• The installation as a whole was intended to give a feeling of the hopelessness of the situation for a group of persecuted people from a different culture, vainly asking for our help, and the treatment that they have received from the government of a more affluent society.

• Terry Summers, November 2002

Sculpture-Fairtrade Foundation

• The petition and ‘protest’ were organised by the Fairtrade Foundation, and called on Prime Minister David Cameron to prioritize the rights of smallholder farmers in his trade policy in the run up to June’s G8 Summit. The cardboard figures, one for each signature on the petition, were created using Mint Digital’s Foldable.Me service which, as we’ve previously reported, allows users to create a customized cardboard character in their own likeness.

• -TNW News

Sculpture-Fairtrade Foundation

Sculpture:“Home is Where You Make it”Artist facilitator Lauri Lyons

• Huffington Post “Art and Activism by Homeless Kulture Klub Collaborative”

Sculpture:Mimi Czajka Graminski “Homage to Workers” Pocketboook Factory , Hudson, NY

Sculpture

Sculpture

Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.

- Margaret Mead

Yoko Ono “Peace Wish Trees”

• As a child in Japan, I used to go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thinpaper and tie it around the branch of a tree. Trees in temple courtyards were alwaysfilled with people’s wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar.”Yoko Ono: “All My Works Are A Form Of Wishing”.

• Yoko Ono’s interactive artwork WISH TREE (1996)  has been integral to many of her exhibitions around the world in museums andcultural centers where people have been invited to write their personal wishes for peace and tie them to a tree branch.

• Yoko has collected all the wishes – currently totalling over a million!

• They are to be housed at the site of the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER.

• Make an IMAGINE PEACE Wish TreeFor your school, workplace, community.*

• You will need: Tree, pencils, Wish Tags.• Wish Trees are traditionally native, local

and indigenous.Olive, Apple, Pomegranate, Ficus, Birch, and Juniper trees are all popular choices.

• For Wish Tags you could use paper and string, or pre-strung white shipping tags.

• Download and add the IMAGINE PEACE signDownload and add the WISH TREE instruction

• That’s it!• When the tree is full of wishes: 

email us a photo and tell us your storymail all the wishes to IMAGINE PEACE TOWER, PO Box 1009, 121 Reykjavik, Iceland.

7. Yoko Ono “Peace Wish Trees”

7. Yoko Ono “Peace Wish Trees”