Artwork Needed
Call for Art: Speak Out
Posted May 7, 2008 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
SPEAK OUT: Art, Design and Politics
What success can artists and designers have in causing and effecting change today?
This exhibition showcases artists and designers from around the world who have taken on the challenge of creating socially and politically charged messages that are meant to persuade, inform and/or educate audiences in a visually overstimulating landscape. It includes political and social posters and artwork that span the last decade selected by invitation, as well as curated from this call for art.
Exhibition dates:
November 1-December 20, 2008
516 Arts, Albuquerque NM
SUBMIT the following by email to: rhiannon@516arts.org
DEADLINE: June 16th
•up to 6 jpg’s of available work
•title, year, media, dimensions for each
•a short bio
•a short artist’s statement
curated by Abby Goldstein, Associate Professor of Art, Fordham University, New York.
Art & Design Needed-Coalition to Abolish the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act
Posted April 22, 2008 by k_c_ in Artwork Needed
I received a request from a friend over at the Center for Constitutional Rights(CCR) to ask artists and designers if they are interested in designing a logo for the Coalition to Abolish the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA)
It is my hope that we can find an artist to create a logo and/or other images to be incorporated into a poster, website and other educational and organizing materials. Its important to create an imagine that represents the Green Scare and feels inclusive to people outside of the animal and environmental rights movements because this is not just about animals and trees, it is about the criminalization of dissent in the name of corporate profits. It is also about creating a culture of fear by calling everyone and everything a terrorist.
Read below for more about the AETA, and for contact information.
Second Annual Mayday Political Print & Poster Art Show
Posted April 15, 2008 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
Calling All Artists!
My friends in Troy are putting on a political print and poster show for Mayday, and you should send in your art! Check it out below:
Second Annual Mayday Political Print & Poster Art Show
A Benefit to Save the Sanctuary for Independent Media
Kismet Gallery, 71 Fourth Street, Troy, NY 12180
This year’s political poster art show is brought to you by the letter F…for freedom: the freedom to display controversial radical art and not be censored by small minded school administrators and petty politicians. Sadly, not everyone here in Troy seems to agree with that idea. This certainly became apparent to us at Kismet after Iraqi born digital artist Waffa Bilal’s video game, Virtual Jihadi, was censored at two art venues in the city. In the video, the artist casts himself as a suicide-bomber who, after learning of the real-life death of his brother in the war, is recruited by Al Qaeda to join the hunt for Bush. The exhibit was originally scheduled to be seen in a gallery at the RPI Arts Department, but administration officials caved into right-wing pressure to shut the exhibit down. The exhibit was then rescheduled to be shown at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy. A protest against both the exhibit’s opening and the Sanctuary was organized by the city’s Republican head of the department of public works (who oversees code enforcement). The day after the protested opening, city code officials contacted the Sanctuary to let them know that they were shutting down the Sanctuary for “ongoing code issues”, necessitating closing of the space and its exhibit.
In response to this urgent issue, Kismet Gallery is sponsoring its second annual Mayday Political Print and Poster Art Show. The event will feature some of the finest radical and socially conscious work from artists all around the country. Not only with this kick the corporate ass, but it will also be priced with working people in mind. This year, in light of recent events and in the sprit of Mayday and solidarity with our brothers and sisters at the Sanctuary, we would like to extend a red hand of support and mutual aid by making this year’s event a benefit to reopen the Sanctuary.
Art Against War
Posted April 11, 2008 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
This just in from folks working with Iraq Veterans Against the War. They're looking for art for a benefit show, read the card below and send in your work!
Oaxaca Resiste!: Print show in Madison, WI. March 27-April 6
Posted March 16, 2008 by nicolas_lampert in Posters
If your in Madison, Wisconsin in late March, check out a show at the Common Wealth Gallery on the Oaxaca teachers strike uprising. The show features woodcut prints, stencil art posters, photos, and comics.
MARCH 27-APRIL 6, 2008
ASARO (Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca)
& Local Artists Ana Nimos • Steve Chapell • Lester Doré- Michael Duffy • Eric Hagstrom • Miguel Peña & Others
Sunday March 30 • 7-9 PM: Opening Reception
Music by Son Madunza
Tuesday April 1 • 7 PM : Mexican Revolutionary Graphic Art from Posada to the present Gallery Talk by Melanie Herzog, Professor of Art History, Edgewood College
Thursday April 3 • 7PM: New Jill Friedberg documentary Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A little bit of so much truth) on people’s takeover of Oaxacan media
Common Wealth Gallery • 100 S. Baldwin St. • Madison, Wisconsin
The Audacity of Desperation: Call for Work
Posted February 15, 2008 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
This looks to be an interesting project, hopefully we'll get some stuff together to submit, you should too!
The Audacity of Desperation: a call for work
Deadline March 10, 2008
Exhibition dates: April 4- May 11 at the Indy Media Center in Urbana, Il.
Organized by Sarah Ross and Jessica Lawless
The Audacity of Desperation is an art exhibition, political action, and on-going dialogue. We are currently seeking distributable artworks addressing the topic of “desperation.” In November 2008 something is going to change. The worst president ever will finally be voted out of the Whitehouse. But, as the infamous writing on the wall reads, IF VOTING CHANGED ANYTHING THEY’D MAKE IT ILLEGAL. Works should exist in multiples with the intention to be freely distributed to audiences. Media can include, but is not at all limited to: posters, stickers, stencils, zines, stamps—ink and postage— buttons, CD’s/DVD’s, postcards, t-shirts and manifestos.
Please send submissions, questions or inquires to: desperationexhibition@gmail.com
We prefer digital submissions. The file size does not need to reflect your final piece.
For more information: http://desperationexhibition.blogspot.com/
If it is not possible to send a digital reproduction, send your submission to:
Desperation submission
c/o jessica lawless
7523 1/2 Lexington Ave.
West Hollywood, CA 90046
Both electronic and material submissions should include:
* Your Name
* e-mail address
* Materials and dimensions
Submissions Due: March 10
Call for Entries/ Call for Show Hosts: The Art of Democracy
Posted February 12, 2008 by nicolas_lampert in Artwork Needed
The Art of Democracy is a national coalition of art exhibitions (scheduled for the fall of 2008) that addresses the dire state of the political scene in the U.S.
Leading up to the November 2008 national elections, artists from around the country will be creating and exhibiting posters and prints that respond to the election, politics, and governmental policy. The Art of Democracy exhibition seeks to attract other individuals and artist organizations from around the nation to help amplify our messages of civil activism, reform, dissent, and protest.
This is not a single show but an affiliation of shows in numerous cities across the U.S.
To contribute your work to these shows, go to: www.artofdemocracy.org
Relevant contact information is provided for most shows.
Artwork by exhibitors can also be found on:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/art-of-democracy/
We encourage artist to put work up on the Flickr site and create posters. The posters will be exchanged with venues around the country. For more information, contact: info@artofdemocracy.org
A Call to Mapmakers
Posted February 8, 2008 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
My good friend and comrade Daniel Tucker in Chicago just sent this over. If you are working on any sort of map projects, get in touch with him!!!
Dear Mapmakers,
This is an invitation to have your maps included in the new “We Are Here” archive that will travel the United States for 2 years (starting Fall 2008) in an exhibition entitled “Experimental Geography” and then be housed in a portable archive in Chicago IL to be available for future exhibition, preservation and research. The archive is dealing with 3 main categories of contemporary cartography: Complexity/Power Mapping; Resource/Asset Mapping; and Alternative Visions of Dominant Geography (see below outline of the kinds of maps we are thinking about).
I have been asked by the organizers of “Experimental Geography” to put together this archive because of my background in organizing mapping related exhibitions and events in Chicago for the last 4 years. This is a great opportunity to get a lot of really interesting and inspiring work together! I should also say up front that I am not being paid to do this and am receiving no budget to work with, only $400 to purchase a poster display rack to preserve the maps. The cost of shipping the collection once it is complete will be covered by the host institutions, but I have no budget for your initial shipping costs to mail the maps to me. I am hoping your motivation for sending your work to me will be the same as mine for putting this together, to get new and excited audiences to have access to this interesting and inspiring work. The show will tour primarily to university galleries and small museums, almost always engaging audiences who are not in attendance at small galleries or cultural institutions where this kind of work is typically displayed. The benefit of having it as part of a larger exhibition about the use of geographic metaphors in contemporary art will also connect this cartographic work to conceptually related work from other genres and spheres of influence.
Arizona Sticker Show
Posted January 25, 2008 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
Just got a note from Mad One in Pheonix, AZ. He's curating a street art sticker art show in Phoenix and is looking for stickers to be sent in from far and wide. You can contact him here.
Send your art in!!! Support the sticker art movement!
MAD INK DESIGNZ
305 S. Mckemy st.
Tempe, AZ 85281 usa
Call for Mural Show
Posted January 25, 2008 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
This just came through the inbox from the Wouter Osterholt en Elke Uitentuis in the Netherlands, seems like a cool project:
Speaking Through Walls
We're looking for people that can help us finding political/revolutionary murals for a project called 'Speaking Through Walls' that will be presented during the art exhibition 'Ground', September 2008 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
The murals can be made by professionals, amateurs, protest groups, schools, government, children, etc. For us it's more important to find murals that tell a story about situations of social injustice within your county than the esthetic beauty of the painting. Do you know any murals in your surrounding that would fit within our project and would you like to help us out? Please contact us and give us as much information about it as possible.
Post queer project Zine!
Posted January 23, 2008 by meredith_stern in Artwork Needed
I found this in the Bulletins on our myspace page...
Hi Friends,
I'm (finally) going to gather up all the postqueer contributions to put together a zine. Since PQP is an open platform, the zine will be, too, so I want to extend some advertising space in the back for fellow glue stick jockeys/paginators/queer zinesters, other queer-based projects, and businesses.
If you have a zine or project and would like to have an ad in the zine, get in touch. Sizes are 2.75" x 2.75." You can email them to me ( info at postqueerproject dot com), if they're saved @ at least 150dpi, as a .jpg, .eps, .tif, or .pdf. Or, of course, mail to PQP / PO Box 22474 / Oakland CA 94609
Free, of course... but even better if you're willing to trade ad space and/or forward this to all your zine-making friends and cohorts.
Let's shoot for a January 31 deadline, but contact me as soon as possible.
xxx,
lex / postqueerproject.com
myspace.com/postqueerproject
Making Our Own Art Histories
Posted December 17, 2007 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
This just landed in our inbox:
The Southern California Library, in South L.A. will be hosting Making Our Own Art Histories, a series of art exhibitions as an effort to make contemporary art accessible in a community where there are very few galleries or contemporary art museums. The first art exhibition in this series begins with Word on the Street, opening in January of 2008. In the same way that SCL uses history to advance social justice while preserving the histories of communities in struggle for justice and making our own histories, artists and activists have created works to educate, organize and inspire people towards action for justice. Often these creative works are not always seen in galleries or museums, they are in the street. This small exhibition will focus on showing works that have been created and used for political, spiritual, social and environmental justice campaigns, actions and interventions. Works that we are especially looking for are those that have been put out on the street, guerilla style, in the effort to educate the public as well as to incite action and critical thought. Such works may include silkscreen posters, printed media, stencils, stickers, flyers, and photos of graffiti and guerilla street art.
If you are interested in participating in this exhibition, please contact Joy at 323.687.6743 or majikalnature [at] gmail.com before Jan. 1st!
8th Annual Chicago Anarchist Film Fest
Posted December 17, 2007 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
For the 8th year, the Chicago Anarchist Film Fest is seeking un- and under-distributed films and videos to include in next years film fest, which will be happening April 25-27th, 2008. This is the same weekend as the Finding Our Roots anarchist conference in Chicago.
The Film Festival will present a sample of films from mainstream sources, rediscovered classics and the works of filmmakers engaged in social change with an anarchist vision. Along with submissions of actual work, they are also looking for "suggestions for titles that may inadvertently allow anarchy to seep through the cracks of the status quo. Movie collage, music videos and trailers for works-in-progress will also be considered."
Submission guidelines can be found here, and an entry form here.
"Reclaiming the F Word" Call for Entries!
Posted December 11, 2007 by meredith_stern in Artwork Needed
Here is a call for entries from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, located in Los Angeles, California.
"Reclaiming the F Word" Submissions Deadline: December 15, 2007
This show will open March 2008 at the Art Galleries, California State University, Northridge.
The Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG) is asking artists,
organizations, and activists for poster submissions for our upcoming exhibition
entitled Reclaiming the “F” Word--Posters on International Feminism. This
exhibition will feature posters about the ongoing struggle for women’s rights
showing us that feminism must not be treated like a dirty word.
http://www.politicalgraphics.org/pdf/Call%20for%20F%20Posters.pdf
Call for Submissions! War in Iraq!
Posted December 7, 2007 by meredith_stern in Artwork Needed
Call for Entries: Deadline January 12, 2008
"Experiencing the War in Iraq"
An Artist Curated, Multi-Media Exhibit of Art about the War in Iraq
(Following text is copied from the call for entries):
What does it mean to experience this war firsthand,
in combat, or as an Iraqi civilian? What does it mean to
experience it from a distance, or on television? How can we
in America reconnect to the reality of war? Are there shared
visions of peace despite cultural and religious differences? The
work will be selected on artistic merit and look to include as
many perspectives as possible, beyond politics.
Check out more details and download a submission form at the following link:
http://reconnectus.org/downloads/ReconnectUS_CFE_dataset_0001.pdf
IAS Accepting Grant Applications
Posted December 7, 2007 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
One of my favorite organizations, the Institute of Anarchist Studies, is accepting grants for their 2008 funding cycle. The IAS is a group dedicated to encouraging and aiding new anarchist writing, publishing and translating. 5 or 6 years ago I received a small grant from them to produce a set of essays around art and anarchism, a project that eventually led to the publishing of Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority.
If your an anarchist or anti-authoritarian writer (or are writing on the subject), look into applying for a grant, as well as supporting the IAS more generally. Here's the grant info:
IAS Writer/Translator Grant Applications
Due January 15, 2008!
Twice a year, the Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS) awards grants to writers and translators worldwide for essay-length works. Our next application deadline is January 15, 2008, and we encourage writers and translators exploring social domination and/or reconstructive visions of a free society to apply. For more information and/or to apply via our online application, go here.
The IAS, a nonprofit foundation established in 1996 to support the development of anarchism, has funded almost sixty projects by authors from countries around the world, including Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Ireland, New Zealand, Chile, Nigeria, Mexico, the Philippines, Germany, Uruguay, South Africa, the Czech Republic, and the United States. Other IAS projects include the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition (RAT) conference, the Radical Theory Track at the National Conference on Organized Resistance (NCOR), the biannual magazine Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, and a Mutual Aid list of speakers available for public talks.
Art for a Democratic Society
Posted November 13, 2007 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
Excited to see this in my inbox, the crew over at Not My Government are trying to put together a Bay Area project similar to the Street Art Workers:
In collaboration with Not My Government, Art for a Democratic Society announces an open call to all visual artists in the Bay Area interested in creating a social/political poster zine. Our goal is to get ten different artists to make one poster each, with the final product being ten 18"x24" posters, probably printed one color on newsprint.
Once we have the crew of artists together, we will all collectively decide the theme of the poster zine. Possible themes include: health care, war, police brutality, opposing the "new Jim Crow," etc. The process of poster design and printing can be done collectively or individually. A skill-share will be organized to help any or all of the artists involved in the project.
If interested please contact us at:
art4democraticsociety [at] earthlink.net
Please tell us your name, email, phone number, what days and times you would be available to meet, and a little about yourself - your background, interests, skills, etc. Artists at any level of experience are welcome.
International Mural Slam
Posted September 29, 2007 by jmacphee in Artwork Needed
This landed in the inbox today:
The 1st New Britain International MURAL SLAM
Calling all vagabonds, graffiti artists, muralists, scenic painters, air brush artists, and activists! The 1st International Mural Slam is being held in New Britain, Connecticut in conjunction with the unique, community-based mural painting program at Central CT State University.
Artists will paint 12’ x 4’ foot wall sections on the roof of the Welte Parking Garage, with prizes awarded to the best pieces.
Call for Art: Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio
Posted February 27, 2007 by in Political Art
This is an open call for artists to design logos for Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio, an immigrant-led social justice organization based in East Harlem. The group was founded in December of 2004 to organize resistance against the devastating effects of gentrification in their community. The immigrant base and leadership of their organization has led Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio to also address the pressing issue of immigrant rights. In 2005, their predominantly Mexican membership decided to become adherents to Zapatista’s Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and joined The Other Campaign, a national movement to change Mexico initiated by the Zapatistas. Since then, the group has facilitated a comprehensive Consulta Con El Barrio to invite popular community participation in developing strategy and focus for the struggle for community based justice.
Increasing attention and support from the public and the press has created a need for logos to represent their group. Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio is looking for two logos, one to represent the organizations local organizing efforts, including their fight against gentrification, and another to represent their transnational organizing as part of the Zapatista-initiated movement in Mexico, The Other Campaign.
If you are interested in making a submission for one or both of the logos, please email movementforjusticeinelbarrio@yahoo.com or call (212) 561-0555 for a few simple guidelines.
Responding to limited responses to their call, Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio is EXTENDING THEIR DEADLINE FOR SUBMITIONS.
Here is a more detailed call written by members of Movimiento Por Justicia del Barrio.
Open call to artists for the creation of the logos for our immigrant-led social justice organization!!
“BEST POWER TO THE PEOPLE MOVEMENT IN NYC”-VILLAGE VOICE ‘06
“IT IS REAL GRASS-ROOTS DEMOCRACY, AND IT IS BEING PRACTICED BY THE IMMIGRANTS WHO LIVE IN EAST HARLEM”-DAILY NEWS ‘06
Who we are:
We are the color of the earth. We are women, men, youth and children of corn. We are immigrants. We have not lived in our home countries for a long time, but home is still the air we breathe, still the pulse of our heart, it is still the thought that fills our minds. We were born in our lands and our lands were born in us.
We are Movement for Justice in El Barrio, an organization of immigrants fighting for justice in East Harlem.
As immigrants, we were forced to leave our native countries because of a savage neoliberal economic system. Here in the U.S, we are affected by neoliberalism on a daily basis. Gentrification pushes us out of our homes in El Barrio. Exploitation at the workplace forces us to work twelve hours daily for poverty wages. Racist immigration policies attempt to criminalize and dehumanize us.
In New York, we fight against neoliberalism in all its forms. We fight against racism, xenophobia, sexism, classism, and homophobia.
We fight for humanity.
Movement for Justice in El Barrio is a rapidly expanding immigrant-led social justice organization led by immigrants in El Barrio (East Harlem, NYC). Founded in December 2004 to fight a voracious trend towards gentrification, Movement for Justice in El Barrio has received passionate support and attention from the public and the press and is in need of logos to represent the group!!!
As immigrants, our organizing is necessarily both local and transnational at the same time. In 2005, our predominantly Mexican membership made the decision to become adherents to Zapatista’s Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and joined The Other Campaign, a national movement to change Mexico initiated by the Zapatistas.
Therefore, we are looking for TWO LOGOS. One to represent our organizing around local issues here in El Barrio, including our fight against gentrification and greedy slumlords, and the city and financial institutions that facilitate the displacement of immigrant families from their homes and another to represent our transnational organizing as part of the Zapatista-initiated movement in Mexico, “The Other Campaign”.
If you are interested in making a submission for either one of the logos, or both, please email movementforjusticeinelbarrio@yahoo.com or call (212) 561-0555 for a few simple guidelines.
Call for Art: Support Jeffrey Luers
Posted January 19, 2007 by in Artwork Needed
Jeff "Free" Luers' support network needs help creating new graphics for a sticker campaign. Free is a political prisoner currently serving a 22-year sentence for arson at an SUV dealership in 2000.
We are going to be printing more stickers soon, and we would like a new design - with your help. Please send us your submissions by February 3rd, preferably by email in an attached jpg file scan ( freefreenow@mutualaid.org) or they can be mailed to Jeff's Support Network, PO Box 3: Eugene, OR 97440.The design must be in black and white and incorporate the website name www.freejeffluers.org and the name Jeffrey 'Free' Luers (or leave room for us to add in later) and the image should be related to support of Jeff and political prisoners. The stickers will be approximately 2.5 inches x 4.25 inches.
To see previous designs, go to
1. http://freefreenow.org/drooker.jpg
2. http://images.indymedia.org/imc/portland/jeffsticker.jpg
3. http://freefreenow.org/pix/june05sticker.jpg
Again, the deadline for submissions is February 3, 2007. The artist selected will get recognition and a big stack of free stickers. Please contact us with any questions at freefreenow@mutualaid.org
Thanks so much again for all of your support!
-Friends of Jeffrey Free Luers
http://www.freefreenow.org
Free's Defense Fund; PO Box 3; Eugene, OR 97440
You can read more about Jeff Luers at freefreenow.org
Propaganda III World Tour
Posted January 4, 2007 by in Political Art
Start Soma a gallery based in San Francisco is calling for work for the first global, peer-to-peer, open source art show- PROPAGANDA III. They are inviting artists from around the world to create political artwork for the third installment of the PROPAGANDA art show that began in 2003.
This year Start Soma launches PROPAGANDA III, a political poster art show that will tour the world through 2008 with dozens of one day art shows worldwide - the current schedule includes stops throughout North America, South America, Australia, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. There will be no censorship of any sort. Expressed political viewpoints, be they left, right, or center, will be displayed side-by-side, both online AND in the traveling show.
Submission Guidelines:
• 18 x 24 inch posters (45.72 cm x 60.96 cm)
• All posters must have overt political content. The nature of this content is up to the individual artist.
• Submitted posters must be produced in multiples - this includes stencils + digital prints, as well as offset, silkscreen, linocut, woodcut, and photocopies.
• Include artist name, country, and URL in the bottom right-hand corner of every poster.
• Submit three copies of each poster - one for the traveling exhibition, one for permanent archiving, and one spare in case the traveling poster is lost or damaged. Unfortunately, none of the posters can be returned.
• The final collection will be donated to the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles which houses the largest collection of Post World War II political graphics in the United States.
Send your posters to the START SOMA GALLERY by March 15, 2007:
START SOMA
672 South Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94110
Send digital versions of artwork to info@startsoma.com with the subject header PROPAGANDA III SUBMISSION - they will be creating an online gallery of all the work included in the traveling exhibition.
Start Soma will also continue to add galleries and venues worldwide to the traveling schedule. If you run a space and are interested in hosting the show contact Start Soma for details.
If you have any questions, please contact John Doffing via john@startsoma.com.
Sustainable Eating Online Zine- Call For Submissions
Posted June 4, 2006 by in Political Art
Sustainable Eating is an online zine exploring the connections between the food we eat and our personal, community and environmental health. Currently, Sustainable Eating is seeking submissions from writers, artists, activists, cooks, and gardeners for issues #4 & #5.
**Issue #4 (Fall/Winter 2006): Roots
Issue #4 will explore how food connects us to the land and to each other. How are you rooted to place by food? In what ways is your community connected through the production, harvest and sharing of food? What is the role of food in your personal, family, or ancestral roots? What root foods do you enjoy? What are the root causes of hunger, the exploitation of land, labor and animals, or other food injustices.
Deadline for Submissions: August 1, 2006
Issue Available Online: Fall/Winter 2006
**Issue #5 (Spring/Summer 2007): Unnatural Eating
Factory farms, GMOs, irradiated foods, hormones, seasonal foods available year-round, regional crops available world-wide, fast food diets, no-carb diets, microwaves, lunch breaks in front of your computer... in so many ways modern food production and eating patterns are far from natural. Analysis, critiques and alternatives to today's unnatural food systems and diets are all welcome for this issue.
Deadline for Submissions: February 1, 2007
Issue Available Online: Spring/Summer 2007
All kinds of submissions are welcome, including: personal essays; news articles; feature stories; interviews; profiles of people, organizations and projects; artwork; and fiction. Sustainable Eating encourages you to interpret this theme in any way you wish, so please do not feel restricted to traditional concepts of the topic. If you are unsure about how your idea might fit with these themes, please feel free to contact Sustainable Eating with a proposal.
Please send your submissions, suggestions, feedback, and questions to: se@semagazine.com.
http://www.semagazine.com
New York Banners Wave in Winds of Change, Demanding Justice for all Immigrants
Posted May 22, 2006 by in Artwork Needed
New Yorkers throughout this City’s diverse communities this morning awoke to messages calling for justice and equality for immigrants throughout the United States.
The messages, including “No Deportations”, “Legalization for All Immigrants”, “Rights for All Workers” among others, were painted on banners unfurled over prominent public sites throughout four boroughs.
The banners – penned in languages from English, Spanish, Korean, Urdu, Chinese and others - were dropped throughout the city in the early morning hours. Manhattan locations include 155th & Riverside Drive, 120th Street & FDR Drive, and Chinatown. Queens locations include the Queensboro Bridge and Jackson Heights and Brooklyn locations include the Prospect Expressway and the BQE.
With Bush's national televised speech on immigration reform on Monday, this action is designed as the people’s response and follows recent national protests, including one in NYC on May 1 that drew out hundreds of thousands of people.
This also comes within New York City's “National Week of Action” called to coincide with the Senate resuming Immigration Debates the same day of Bush’s immigration speech. Here is the press release for the national day of action.
Immigrants Demand Real Legalization & Reject Inhumane CompromisesAs the Senate reconvenes on Monday, May 15th for the last stretch of its immigration reform debate, immigrants in New York City will join thousands across the country in a National Week of Actions from May 14- May 20 to say "No Deal!" to a three tier legalization bill, guest worker programs, increased enforcement, and border walls. Immigrants warn the Senate against compromising our futures with the bill on the table which has drawn mass opposition for its attempt to split up immigrant families and increase criminalization through expedited deportation and indefinite detention. Instead grassroots coalitions of diverse immigrant organizations stand firm in saying that immigrants deserve no less than:
(1) Legalization for all immigrants; No guest-worker programs of work & leave
(2) Improved and faster family reunification opportunities for all;
(3) Enforce the protection of human and civil rights by reducing detention & deportation, ending collaboration between the DHS and public agencies, and ending deaths & abuses of migrants at the borders;
(4) Non-compliance with the REAL ID Act and the guarantee of equal access to driver's licenses for immigrants;
(5) Equal protection of labor rights of undocumented workers.
Also, check out our small, but hopefully growing, archive of immigrant's rights artwork. All pieces are available for download and free dissemination.
Help us help our friend
Posted April 25, 2006 by in Artwork Needed
NOTE: DATE CHANGE! EXTENDED DEADLINE!
The benefit gallery show for Daniel McGowan has been moved to July 27-28 at ABC No Rio. We’ve already got Armsrock, Arofish, Borf, GoreB, Peter Kuper, Josh MacPhee, RB827, Nicole Schulman, Chris Stain, Swoon, Seth Tobocman, and lots of other great artists involved, and we’re still seeking donations for the show.
Call for Artwork: Benefit Gallery Show for Daniel McGowan
Thursday, July 27 & Friday, July 28, 2006 at ABC No Rio
Co-sponsored by Visual Resistance and Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan
Deadline: June 20, 2006
Contact: visual.resistance@gmail.com
On December 7th, my friend was arrested at his workplace by federal marshals. The friend I know as a tireless activist and a funny, generous, caring person was ripped from his friends and family without warning and held without bail in federal prison, facing multiple felony charges and life in prison.
I met Daniel McGowan during the buildup to the protests against the Republican National Convention in New York. The Visual Resistance crew was organizing the No RNC Poster Project and Daniel was our first ally. In the time since, Daniel has been a personal friend to all of us in VR and to many more in the larger New York activist community. His constant smile and good humor belied his selfless devotion to making this world a better place.
And on December 7th, he was disappeared. Daniel was extradited to Oregon and held without bail for two months on charges whose statute of limitations were close to expiring. His arrest came as part of a massive government crackdown on the radical environmentalist movement which many are referring to as the “Green Scare.” His arrest left the community in shock.
Daniel has pled not guilty to all charges. Although he is currently out on bail, he faces a lengthy and extremely expensive trial. His family and friends have been scrambling to raise funds and organize a defense team.
Simply put, he needs our help, and we need yours.
We are planning a two-night gallery show and art auction on July 27-28 at ABC No Rio to help pay for Daniel’s legal defense. We are asking artists who are committed to social justice and political activism to contribute artwork. Some art will also be sold through our website. All proceeds will go to help pay Daniel’s legal costs.
Any artwork you can contribute will be a huge help, and we appreciate your generosity in advance. The work in the show will encompass a myriad of themes, styles, and techniques. Work that deals with the issues involved in the Green Scare are appreciated, but not required.
Please contact us if you are interested in donating artwork! We are more than happy to work with you on your terms and can cover incidental costs such as shipping. We can pick up artwork in the New York City area – email visual.resistance@gmail.com for a mailing address.
Specs: While there is no strict size limit, we prefer smaller artwork (less than 18x24). All work should be ready to hang. Print multiples are very, very welcome.
For more information on Daniel’s case and the Green Scare, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/030706EA.shtml
http://eugeneweekly.com/2006/03/09/coverstory.html
-----
Contact Visual Resistance:
visual.resistance@gmail.com
http://visualresistance.org/wordpress
Contact Family & Friends of Daniel McGowan:
PO Box 106, NY, NY 10156
friendsofdanielmcg@Yahoo.com
http://www.supportdaniel.org
A Call for May Day Art
Posted April 19, 2006 by in Posters
Following the momentum of massive March 25th mobilizations, student walkouts, and April 10th's historic day of action for immigrant rights, comes the call for El Gran Paro Americano (The Great American Boycott). May 1st is a day for global action against upcoming anti-immigrant legislation and in favor of universal amnesty. Across the country, a broad network of immigrant rights groups, labor unions, workers associations, student groups, and collectives of all sorts have announced calls for a general strike, boycott, no sales or purchases, walkouts, marches, and actions in financial centers and at anti-immigrant corporations throughout the country. Groups throughout Latin America, such as Mujeres Creando and La Otra Campaña, have called for a boycott of all American products as well as actions in solidarity with the North American immigrants movement. Here is a selection from a call by a California based organization, ActionLA.org
On May 1, we are calling No Work, No School, No Sales, and No Buying, and also to have rallies around symbols of economic trade in your areas (stock exchanges, anti-immigrant corporations, etc.) to protest the anti-immigrant movements across the country.
We believe that increased enforcement is a step in the wrong direction and will only serve to facilitate more tragedies along the Mexican-U.S. border in terms of deaths and family separation. We will settle for nothing less than full amnesty and dignity for the millions of undocumented workers presently in the U.S.
Visual Resistance would like to offer our own call. A call for artwork to promote and support the actions of May 1st. We welcome art by organizations, collectives, or individuals. Whether you are a professional graphic designer, a fine artist, or just someone with a lot of heart and passion that needs expressing, please, SEND US YOUR ART! We will be posting submissions for free download on a separate and more permanent page. Our hope is that this archive of imagery will help contribute to an aesthetic expression of ideas and actions to stop government aggression against immigrant communities.
The graphic above, by schock at riseup d0t net
Paint Jam with the Endless Love Crew
Posted February 28, 2006 by in Events
Our buds the Endless Love Crew invite y'all to come on down to a paint session this weekend! It's open up to anyone who wants to come by and there will be enough supplies so no one has to bring any. Fun fun fun!
March 4th and 25th
1-6pm
Chashama Center Gallery
112 W. 44th Street
btw. Broadway & 6th Ave.
Times Square, NYC
Eliot adds: For those who don't know, the Endless Love Crew is a great street art group made up of some of New York's most prolific artists, including GoreB, Infinity, Abe Lincoln Jr., Celso, and a whole bunch more. Very cool group -- should be a lot of fun!
Artists Call, Participate in a Traveling Exhibition on the Housing Crisis in LA
Posted February 8, 2006 by in Events
The Southern California Library (SCL) is seeking artists including performers, musicians, spoken word, and multimedia artists to participate in a traveling exhibition. If you have work or if you are interested in creating work related to the "housing crisis" in Los Angeles, they are looking for you!
The mural pictured here was painted by Eva Cockcroft and hangs on the inside wall of SCL, beside the "Wall of Honor." The "Wall of Honor" commemorates family, heroes, and friends.
DEADLINE IS MARCH 1!
Submission content should relate to these themes:
- Housing: history, memory, oral history, mapping, activism
- Land: public place, (re) development, urban planning
- Homelessness
- Gentrification/ Relocation/ Displacement
- Concepts of sustainability
- Environmental & social justice, past/ present local political movements
- Zapatista/ Indigenous Movements: Global comparisons of land, space, housing, urban planning
Artists who have an interest in creative political education, including graffiti and conceptual artists, that will help tell the story of the "housing crisis" in L.A. are encouraged to apply. For more information and application, please contact Joy at (323) 687-6743 or lunakul@yahoo.com
Call for Art: Cut & Paint 2
Posted December 14, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
Cut&Paint: A Stencil Template Zine #2
Deadline: February 1st, 2006
Cut & Paint was a fantastic, 54-page poltical stencil template zine put together by Josh MacPhee, Nicolas Lampert and Colin Matthes with contributions from some of our favorite artists, including Claude Moller, Nicole Schulman, Klutch, Erik Ruin, Icky, Andalusia, Janet Attard, the three editors, and a couple dozen more.
Now's your chance to join this illustrious company. The follow-up will feature more artists, plus new sections of photos and a how-to guide for beginners as well as die-cut stencil templates for easy application.
They're looking for high-resolution black & white stencil sprays, 7x8 inches. The full call is below the fold:
We're almost sold out of the 400 copies we made of Cut&Paint #1 and we barely did any promotion, the zines sold themselves!We've decided this success demands a follow-up, so we're putting together another issue of Cut&Paint and we need your help. Once again, Josh MacPhee, Nicolas Lampert and Colin Matthes are putting together a zine of stencil templates. This time around we plan on scaling back the size of the zine a little (legal size folded, so 7" x 8.5"), but to make up for the shrinking size we hope to include a set of die-cut stencil templates with the zine. That's right, pre-cut stencils ready to use!
Like issue #1, most of the zine will be filled with some of the best and most exciting stencil templates out there (black and white stencil images that can be cut out and used), so we're looking for your best stencil template ideas. This time around we're also open to multi-color pieces, so if you are interested send a clean black & white print of each layer, as well as a composite image.
In addition, we would like to expand the rest of the zine, too. This means more in the how-to section, so send along any new tips you've got. We want photos of stencils from your area, we'd like to run a couple spreads of regional stencil action, particularly from places we usually don't hear from. We'll also be including some writing on stencils as well, so if you have any articles you've been working on that deal with stenciling, public space, politics, etc., feel free to submit them.
Here's what we are looking for:
--- All designs should be 7x8 inches
--- Templates should be clean sprays of stencils on clean white paper. Flat black paint is preferable. We’ll be photocopying these templates, so keep the lines and edges as crisp as possible. In order to get a really clean print, you can spray little bit of spray-tack (like light spraymount) on the back of the stencil so it lays flat on the paper.
--- No racist, sexist, homophobic designs. Also, we’re really looking for smart and creative takes on what’s going on in the world, not copied portraits of movie stars or Japanese robots. Keep it original.
--- Stencils don’t have to be hit-you-over-the-head political (i.e. Fuck Bush, although that’s fine too), but they should be interesting to more than just you and your friends! The goal is to have stencil templates that other people will want to use.
--- Feel free to submit more than one template design
--- Tell us if you want your template credited to a name, and if so, what name (and contact information if you want, i.e. website, email, address, etc.)
The best designs will be used for the die-cuts, so send in great stuff and we might make 1000 pre-cut copies of you're stencil! We hope to keep the price at $5 or below, and distribute Cut&Paint #2 much further and wider than #1.
All templates that are chosen for the zine will become copyleft/copyriot (i.e. they can be freely copied and used by anyone, public domain). Everyone who has a stencil chosen for Cut&Paint #2 will get a free copy of the zine.
Send templates, photos, and writing to:
Josh MacPhee
53 Third St.
Troy, NY 12180
or email hi-res (preferably 600dpi greyscale or 1200dpi line art) templates, photos (300 dpi) or writing to: josh [at] justseeds. org
If you have any questions, drop an email to animaltrap [at] yahoo. com or josh [at] justseeds.org
Art against borders
Posted November 7, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
Brandon Bauer sends word of an open call from the International Network of Artists in Resistance:
In 2006 may the people rise with spray paint, voices, street theatre, stencils, drums, paint brushes and all other tools of creative resistance to let the world know that we will not stand for more borders to be constructed around us!The first day of action will commence at midnight on January 1, 2006, the 12th anniversary of the passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Zapatista Uprising.
Download the flyer here. From the sound of the sound of the call, this seems like more of an "open-source" project than a strictly definded campaign. In other words, it is what you make of it, so anyone with any interest, drop a line to info[at]babylonarts.org to find out how to get involved.
Call for Art: Guernica Project
Posted October 21, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
Got an email a few days ago from artist John Unger with an ambitious call for an "open source" campaign:
I'd like to invite any interested groups or individuals to help plaster the USA with billboard size reproductions of Picasso's Guernica. Ideally, the work would stand without any text or headlines or additional commentary: if the painting is all that's seen, it forces the viewer to make an interpretation instead of being told what to think. Being told what to think is exactly what got Americans in trouble in the first place, no?The following paragraph is not what inspired the idea, but I think it explains relatively well what one might hope to accomplish in this project:
"A tapestry copy of Picasso's Guernica is displayed on the wall of the United Nations building in New York City, at the entrance to the Security Council room. It was placed there as a reminder of the horrors of war. Commissioned and donated by Nelson Rockefeller, it is not quite as monochromatic as the original, using several shades of brown. On February 5, 2003, a large blue curtain was placed to cover this work, so that it would not be visible in the background when Colin Powell and John Negroponte gave press conferences at the United Nations. On the following day, it was claimed that the curtain was placed there at the request of television news crews, who had complained that the wild lines and screaming figures made for a bad backdrop, and that a horse's hindquarters appeared just above the faces of any speakers. Diplomats, however, told journalists that the Bush Administration leaned on UN officials to cover the tapestry, rather than have it in the background while Powell or other U.S. diplomats argued for war on Iraq." -- quoted from wikipedia
If the painting intimidates warmongers into covering it, then why not make sure that it goes up in as many public spaces as possible?
Full call here. The Powell incident sparked outrage among artists and civil libertarians, and inspired Word War 3 Arts in Action to create Guernica-themed placards for the March 22, 2003 antiwar march in NYC. It also led me to create my first stencil. Anyone who would like to get involved in this project can find a source image of Picasso's Guernica here. Contact us at visual.resistance@gmail.com and John at johntunger.typepad.com if you'd like to work on this.
Reminder: Reproduce & Revolt call
Posted September 22, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
A quick reminder to all you artists out there about the Reproduce & Revolt project: Josh MacPhee is now working with Favianna Rodriguez as co-editor of what promises to be an extremely ambitious and exciting book:
Reproduce and Revolt! is a graphic toolbox to be launched into the hands of political activists all over the world. The book will contain over 300 new and exciting high-quality black & white illustrations and graphics about social justice and political activism for activists to use on flyers, posters, t-shirts, brochures, stencils or any other graphic aspects of political campaigns. All the graphics will be bold and easy to reproduce, in addition to being royalty-free/open source/anti-copyright/creative commons. This means folks will be able to use and reproduce the graphics for free! The book will come with clear instructions on how to best utilize the images so as to improve the graphic qualities of political campaigns. It will also contain a short history of political graphics, an archive of political flyers and posters throughout history, as well as information about and a bibliography of further reading for all of the social justice issues the art will cover.
The deadline is approaching quickly (October 31), so if you have work that meets the criteria, send it in soon. The full call for artwork, with complete details, specs, and contact information is below the fold:
CALL FOR ARTWORK
to be published in a new book.
Deadline: October 31st, 2005
Reproduce and Revolt!: Radical Graphics for the 21st Century
Edited by Josh MacPhee & Favianna Rodriguez
Soft Skull Press
Reproduce and Revolt! is a graphic toolbox to be launched into the hands of political activists all over the world. The book will contain over 300 new and exciting high-quality black & white illustrations and graphics about social justice and political activism for activists to use on flyers, posters, t-shirts, brochures, stencils or any other graphic aspects of political campaigns. All the graphics will be bold and easy to reproduce, in addition to being royalty-free/open source/anti-copyright/creative commons. This means folks will be able to use and reproduce the graphics for free! The book will come with clear instructions on how to best utilize the images so as to improve the graphic qualities of political campaigns. It will also contain a short history of political graphics, an archive of political flyers and posters throughout history, as well as information about and a bibliography of further reading for all of the social justice issues the art will cover.
We are now collecting submissions of graphics, illustrations and art for the book, which will be published by Soft Skull Press in late 2006. We will chose for the book according quality of the image, reproducibility, and how well the graphic conveys the issues. Not everyone's submissions will be included. We will also be attempting to craft the book to represent the output of as diverse a group of artists as possible, across gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, ability, etc. Reproduce & Revolt! is not intended to be a who's who of well known and successful political artists, this call is open to ALL levels of artists.
This is Josh MacPhee's second book with Soft Skull Press. His first, Stencil Pirates: A Global Survey of Street Stenciling, was released in July 2004. Stencil Pirates has gotten great reviews and is currently in it's third printing. Favianna Rodriguez is a Chicana designer and political artist based in the Bay Area who will be co-editing the book.
Here are the specifications for the images:
--- BLACK & WHITE/Greyscale.
--- High Resolution: either original artwork on paper or high res digital images, minimum 600 dpi for greyscale, 1200 dpi for line art.
--- vector-based graphics in .ai and .eps file types are encouraged (but in no way mandatory!)
--- A minimum of 6 inches x 6 inches.
--- All mediums are accepted (various forms of printmaking, drawing, digital design, collages, etc.). The main factor is reproducibility.
--- Because I hope the book will be useful for years to come, no graphics that are specific to individual politicians or limited specific political campaigns will be selected. This means NO George Bush graphics. The goal of the book is not to be a "best of" of anti-war or anti-bush images, but a collection of political graphic material that will continue to be directly useful to political activists for years to come.
Below are the catagories of issues the images should address (there will inevitably be overlap between the categories, these are simply guidelines and suggestions to help clarify and spark inspiration). In addition, the book will contain graphics in support of positive activities as well as graphics in opposition to negative aspects of the world, these are both included below (in alphabetical order, not order of importance!):
--- Anti-Authoritarianism (including anarchism, hierarchy, direct action, mutual aid and more)
--- Anti-Racism & Third World/POC Unity (institutional racism, racial equality, unity among peoples of color throughout the world, national movements, attacks on youth of color, white privilege and more)
--- Arts & Culture as Tools of Resistance (including images that represent practices of music, art, graffiti, breakdance, hip hop, punk, singing, djing, capoeira, as forms of resistance)
--- Counter-Globalization (including corporate control, IMF, World Bank, WTO, capitalism, austerity, world debt, alternative economies and more)
--- Education (including privatization, self-education, free schools, liberatory pedagogy, urban inequalities, military recruitment and more)
--- Environment (including environmental justice, environmental racism, endangered species, animal rights, earth liberation, deforestation, strip mining, water rights, bio-tech, organics, community gardens and more)
--- Feminism (including women's struggles, wages for housework, equal pay for equal work, equal rights, gender discrimination, women's liberation movement, sexual assault, men against sexism, fat lib. and more)
--- Food (including food justice, anti-fast-food, meat industry, right to whole foods, people's farms, vegeterianism/veganism, GMO's)
--- Government & Police Brutality (including bureaucracy, taxes, anti-cop, police brutality, elections, voter fraud, voter disenfranchisement, voting rights, and more)
--- Health Care (including disability, mental health, AIDS, access, abortion, aging and more)
--- Housing (including public housing, gentrification, private ownership, abandonment, homelessness and more)
--- International Solidarity (including connections with movements around the world, borders, mutual aid, national liberation, Zapatista support, Cuba support, Palestine Support, indigenous solidarity and more)
--- Immigration & Border Issues (including US/Mexico border wall, refugees, deportation, detention, English-only laws, immigrant rights, immigrant-bashing, denouncing term "illegal")
--- Land Struggles (including Palestine, Native land theft, right to nationhood and land, anti-privatization land laws)
--- Labor (including unions, work slowdowns/stoppages/sabotage, strikes, bosses, anti-work, economics, campesinos, farm workers, maquiladoras, sweatshops, sex work and more)
--- Media (including media control, media justice, media consolidation, independent media, pirate radio and more)
--- Prisons (including prison reform, prison abolition, racism in the criminal justice system, the death penalty, political prisoners, stopping the construction of prisons, torture, sentencing discrepancies and more)
--- Protest (including marches, protests, direct action, pickets, plowshares, armed actions and more)
--- Queer Liberation (including gay, lesbian, trans, intersex, and bisexual struggle, gender binaries, queer bashing, sexual liberation and more)
--- War (including anti-war, imperialism, militarism, state terrorism, war tax resistance, nuclear weapons, "collateral damage" and more)
--- Youth Power (including youth organizing, youth voices, children's rights)
We will craft about a dozen chapters out of these catagories, and each chapters will be filled with 30-40 new and exciting illustrations and graphics created by dozens of political artists, hopefully including you. A website of high resolution copies of a large number of the images in the book will also be created, and ideally I will include some of the graphics that don't make the cut into the published volume. People will be able to both photocopy the images or pull them directly into digital files via the website.
We hope this project will help activists and organizers all over the world, but also help boost radical artists themselves by getting our work further out into the world. We hope to be able to pay a nominal fee for each piece published as well as give each artist access to books at 50% off the cover price.
All material must be submitted by October 31st, 2005.
THIS IS THE FINAL DEADLINE
There is no limit to the number of images you can submit.
Remember BLACK & WHITE, NO COLOR please
All images need to be emailed to "reproduce [at] justseeds [dot] org" OR "favianna [at] favianna [dot] com"
or mailed to:
Josh MacPhee/R&R
53 Third St.
Troy, NY 12180
If you have any additional questions, feel free to write or email the above addresses.
Thanks,
Josh MacPhee & Favianna Rodriguez
www.justseeds.org
www.stencilpirates.org
www.favianna.com
www.tumis.com
PROPAGANDA 2.0 : "They Hate Our Freedom"
Posted August 2, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
This is a little last-minute (deadline: August 5), but we just received a call from SF-based gallery Start Soma for a follow-up to their 2003 Propaganda show called Propaganda 2.0: "They Hate Our Freedom". Anyone with work ready should e-mail them ASAP, as the previous show looks like it was great and the call for this one is fantastic. Even if you can't participate, the call itself is interesting for the stress it places on artistic freedom:
A few years ago, a rookie curator in San Francisco could put together a political art show, and tilt at windmills on the left, the right, and in between. It was all good fun.
But times have changed.
A few weeks ago, police in Los Angeles shut down an art show in the middle of the opening, on the grounds that it was "offensive and aggressive in nature." The offending works were culture-jammed corporate logos. Last month, the Secret Service dropped in to investigate an art show in Chicago. The FBI recently seized equipment in New York from a renowned artist collective who produce multimedia work examining the role of technology in modern life. And a portrait by artist Christopher Savido created such a stir at the Chelsea Market, that the market's managers shut down the 60-piece art show that was scheduled to stay up for the next month.
Even 'ultra-lib' San Francisco has not been immune. Last year, a gallery owner shut her doors permanently after receiving death threats following the exhibition of an oil painting depicting torture at Abu Ghraib. Our own Hotel des Arts just received a CEASE + DESIST letter from a global multinational, demanding that we destroy one of the dozens of murals in the art hotel because it featured a corporate logo.
There is definitely a chill in the air when it comes to FREEDOM OF SPEECH + ARTISTIC EXPRESSION.
The show will be sales-free; you can email sample jpegs to john[at]startsoma.com. Full details are here. Check out samples from the 2003 Propaganda show here. And be sure to check out the other great work Start Soma does, especially their gallery of featured artists. Image at top from Start Soma's Propaganda show.
Call for Posters on Prison-Industrial Complex
Posted July 12, 2005 by in Posters
Brandon Bauer sent us a call from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics for poster art related to the prison-industrial complex. The CPSG is a great institution that documents and supports contemporary political artists and the exhibition they're planning sounds wonderful.
Check out the text of the call below, or download a PDF version here. And don't forget the other two great projects that are still seeking submissions: Street Art Workers and Josh MacPhee's Reproduce and Revolt!.
WANTED: Posters on the Prison Industrial ComplexThe Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG) will premiere an exhibition on the Prison Industrial Complex at the Watts Towers Art Center, Spring 2006. CSPG is asking artists, organizations and activists for poster donations to help develop this exhibition.
We also are looking for artists to make posters for organizations doing prison work. The United States has the largest prison population in the world—over two million inmates. In California, 32 prisons house over 160,000 men and women at an annual cost of $6 billion. Since the 1970s, the rate of most serious crimes has dropped or remained stagnant, yet prisons have been filled at double capacity. People of color, the poor, the illiterate, the mentally ill, youth, and women are the primary occupants. One in three black men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine will spend time in prison or jail. The majority of those entering prison are convicted on non-violent drug charges.
Under the California three-strikes laws, many prisoners are serving life sentences for petty theft convictions. In California, 80% of incoming prisoners are returning on parole violations. The number of women in U.S. prisons multiplied more than seven times between 1980 and 2003, from 13,400 to over 100,000. Valley State Prison for Women, in Chowchilla, California, holds over 3500 women—twice its capacity—and is the largest women’s prison in the world. This phenomenal growth is due to mandatory drug sentencing laws, conspiracy provisions, a dysfunctional parole system, inadequate legal representation, and huge profits made by the multinational corporations servicing the prisons.
The posters in CSPG’s prison exhibition will cover many of the critical issues surrounding this system of mass incarceration including: the death penalty, Three Strikes, racism, women’s right to self defense, access to education and health care, sweatshop labor, divestment, privatization,
torture, and re-entry into the community.
Posters should be submitted by January 30, 2006. Criteria for posters CSPG collects: 1). It must be produced in multiples such as silkscreen, offset, stencil, litho, digital output etc. 2). The poster must have overt political content. If you would like to create a poster for an organization doing prison work or to donate posters, please contact:
Center fo rthe Study of Political Graphics
8124 West Third Street, Suite 211
Los Angeles, CA
90048-4039
tel: 323.653.4662
fax: 323.653.6991
email: cspg@politicalgraphics.org
www.politicalgraphics.org
With more than 50,000 posters, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics has the largest collection of Post World War II graphics in the U.S. Through traveling exhibitions, online photo albums, internships, and volunteer opportunities CSPG actively shares this valuable resource with a broader public. CSPG is reclaiming the power of art to educate, agitate and inspire action.
Image at top from the Street Art Workers' 2002 campaign, Art vs. Prisons.
Street Art Workers: Call for Art
Posted June 14, 2005 by in Posters
We're kickin' off a new project with the Street Art Workers (SAW), a national collective of printmakers, stencil artists, graffiti writers and designers who use the streets for art and activism. The previous poster project themes were entitled, Whose Media?, Utopia / Dystopia, and Art vs. Prisons.
The call for this year's project is now up at streetartworkers.org/call:
SAW wants to look at how globalization has affected our lands and how people are fighting back. How has it affected land in the cities — especially housing? How has globalization impacted land and workers in the countryside with farming, mining, drilling, logging and other resource extraction? What are the connections between land struggles in the global south, indigenous nations and the industrialized north? What are some of the connections between the landless peasants movement of Brazil and the squatter movements of Europe and North America? What links together the struggle against dams in India, hydroelectric projects Canada and water privatization in Latin America and South Africa? How are farmers and campesinos resisting industrial agriculture, like biotechnology and GMOs (genetically modified foods), in the U.S., Mexico and India? What organizing strategies have worked and hich ones have failed?These questions are a starting point. We want to see more questions from you and some hard-hitting answers. We want powerful ideas and inspirational art that we can broadcast directly to the streets in 2005.We want posters that build connections between international struggles and actual organized projects with high profile publicity.
We especially want to see multilingual submissions and work from the perspective of women, Third World communities and indigenous/First Nations. We suggest that artists collaborate with grassroots, social change organizations of their choosing to make posters. We want posters that are both imaginative and relevant to “on the ground” organizing around issues of land, housing and globalization. Working with an organization is not required, but it is encouraged.
The deadline is September 1, 2005 --- designs will be curated and printed in Winter 2005-6 and wheatpasted in Spring 2006. Full details on the submission process and specs for designs are available here. For more information, visit streetartworkers.org or email streetartworkers[at]gmail.com.
Call for Art: Reproduce and Revolt!
Posted April 25, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
Josh MacPhee --- author of Stencil Pirates, curator of the Celebrate People History posters, organizer for the Street Art Workers project, and all-around nice guy --- is one of our favorite people.
A few weeks back he sent us an announcement for an ambitious and urgently necessary project: a collection of new, relevant radical graphics to be published by Soft Skull Press. We're reproducing the call in full below:
Reproduce and Revolt!: Radical Graphics for the 21st CenturyEdited by Josh MacPhee
Soft Skull Press
Reproduce and Revolt! is a graphic toolbox to be launched into the hands of political activists. The book will contain over 300 new and exciting high-quality illustrations and graphics about social justice and political activism for activists to use on flyers, posters, t-shirts, brochures, stencils or any other graphic aspects of political campaigns. All the graphics will be bold and easy to reproduce, in addition to being open source/anti-copyright. The book will come with clear instructions on how to best utilize the images so as to improve the graphic qualities of political campaigns. It will also contain a short history of political graphics, an archive of political flyers and posters throughout history, as well as information about and a bibliography of further reading for all of the social justice issues the art will cover.
I am now collecting submissions of graphics, illustrations and art for the book, which will be published by Soft Skull Press in late 2006. I will chose for the book according quality of the image, reproducibility, and how well they convey the issues. Not everyone's submissions will be included. I will also be attempting to craft the book to represent the output of as diverse a group of artists as possible, across gender, race, nationality, sexuality, ability, etc. Reproduce & Revolt! is not intended to be a who's who of well known and successful political artists, this call is open to all levels of artists.
This is my second book with Soft Skull Press. My first, Stencil Pirates: A Global Survey of Street Stenciling, was released in July 2004. Stencil Pirates has gotten great reviews and is currently in it's third printing.
Here are the specifications for the images:
--- Black and White/Greyscale.
--- High Resolution: either original artwork on paper or high res digital images, minimum 600 dpi for greyscale, 1200 dpi for line art.
--- A minimum of 6 inches x 6 inches.
--- All mediums are accepted (various forms of printmaking, drawing,
digital design, collages, etc.). The main factor is reproducibility.
Here are the catagories the images should be about (there will inevitably be overlap between the categories, these are simply guidelines and suggestions to help clarify and spark inspiration). In addition, the book will contain graphics in support of positive activities and graphics in opposition to negative aspects of the world, these are both included below (in alphabetical order, not order of importance!):
--- Anti-Authoritarianism (including anarchism, hierarchy, direct action, mutual aid and more)
--- Anti-Racism (including racial equality, institutional racism, attacks on youth of color, white privilege and more)
--- Counter-Globalization (including corporate control, IMF, World Bank, WTO, capitalism, austerity, world debt, alternative economies and more)
--- Education (including privatization, self-education, free schools, liberatory pedagogy, urban inequalities, military recruitment and more)
--- Environment (including environmental justice, environmental racism, endangered species, animal rights, earth liberation, deforestation, strip mining, water rights, bio-tech, organics, community gardens and more)
--- Feminism (including women's struggles, wages for housework, equal pay for equal work, equal rights, gender discrimination, women's liberation movement, sexual assault, men against sexism and more)
--- Government (including bureaucracy, taxes, anti-cop, police brutality, elections and more)
--- Health Care (including disability, mental health, AIDS, access, abortion, aging and more)
--- Housing (including public housing, gentrification, private ownership, abandonment, homelessness and more)
--- International Solidarity (including connections with movements around the world, borders, mutual aid, national liberation, Zapatista support, indigenous solidarity and more)
--- Labor (including unions, work slowdowns/stoppages/sabotage, strikes, bosses, anti-work, economics, maquiladoras, sweatshops and more)
--- Media (including media control, media consolidation, independent media, pirate radio and more)
--- Prisons (including prison reform, prison abolition, racism in the criminal justice system, the death penalty, political prisoners, stopping the construction of prisons, torture, sentencing discrepancies and more)
--- Protest (including marches, protests, direct action, pickets, plowshares, armed actions and more)
--- Queer Liberation (including gay, lesbian, trans, intersex, and bisexual struggle, gender binaries, queer bashing, sexual liberation and more)
--- War (including anti-war, imperialism, militarism, state terrorism, war tax resistance, nuclear weapons, "collateral damage" and more)
I will craft about a dozen chapters out of these categories, and each chapters will be filled with 30-40 new and exciting illustrations and graphics created by dozens of political artists, hopefully including you.
A website of high resolution copies of a large number of the images in the book will also be created, and ideally I will include some of the graphics that don't make the cut into the published volume. People will be able to either photocopy the images or pull them directly into digital files via the website.
I hope this project will both help radical activist projects, but also help boost radical artists by getting our work further out into the world.
I hope to be able to pay a nominal fee for each piece published as well as give each artist access to books at 50% off the cover price.
All material must be submitted by October 31st, 2005. THIS IS THE FINAL DEADLINE. There is no limit to the number of images you can submit.
All images need to be emailed to "reproduce [at] justseeds [dot] org"
or mailed to:
Josh MacPhee/R&R
POBox 476971
Chicago, IL 60647
If you have any additional questions, feel free to write or email the
above addresses.
Thanks,
Josh MacPhee
Helping Critical Mass
Posted April 2, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
I went to critical mass last Friday night and after a lot of initial nervousness, ended up having a great ride with 5... then 10... then 30+ people. Our group was more or less undisturbed by the police until the very end of our ride. By the end of the weekend, NYC Indymedia was reporting 37 arrests, plus 60+ bike seizures --- this on top of last week's lawsuit by the city trying to stop Time's Up from advertising Critical Mass.
Anyone who's been to a Mass since the Republican National Convention knows the brute, stupid force the NYPD uses against each ride (check out reports from February, January, November, August...). Simply put, Bloomberg and the NYPD are trying to end Critical Mass in New York.
I for one don't plan to watch that happen. Critical Mass is important for this city not just as a form of advocacy for environmentally sound transportation, but also as proof that protest can be fun, inclusive, and empowering.
Polls have shown that the public is behind Critical Mass and not the cops. This winter the rides have been pretty small, and haven't gotten a lot of press or public attention. As spring heats up, that'll change, and a smart visual campaign --- in addition to the great legal work being done by Time's Up and the National Lawyers Guild --- could help leverage public opinion and make the police back off.
That's where you all come in. Visual Resistance would like to facilitate a street art campaign in support of Critical Mass, and to do that we need some of the great artists and designers that visit this site to put pen to paper --- or fire up Photoshop, or whatever you do best --- to contibute designs. We can print up stickers and posters, and make sticker, poster, or stencil designs available for download on the site. Some possible themes would be: supporting/promoting Critical Mass; defending the right to free assembly; and promoting bicycling as a form of transportation.
For background info on Critical Mass and the city's harrassment, check the Time's Up press room and legal newswire, or look around on NYC Indymedia.
Poster designs should be 8.5x11 or 11x17, sticker and stencil designs can be any logical size. You can e-mail designs to us at visual.resistance [at] gmail.com in JPG, PDF, or Photoshop formats, 300 dpi or greater. If you prefer to send hard copies, drop us a line and we'll give you a mailing address.
We'll set up a downloads page as soon as we get some designs. I don't have a firm deadline in mind, since we can print as we get stuff in, but I would like to have some materials ready for the April 29th ride.
Photo at top by Fred Askew. Original at: http://www.stratecomm.net/~fritz/gallery/cm0305
UPDATE 4/10/05: Check out the Critical Mass art we have received so far, and email us at visual.resistance [at] gmail.com to send your own!
Call for artists: "FUMED"
Posted March 17, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
Got this in the email box today --- any readers who live, work, or have passed through Chicago, take note: This exhibition will present a selection of artists who have examined and artistically used the walls of Chicago as a template for creative pursuits. The grid of the city constitutes a living canvas, a nexus for exploration, reflection and contemplation. This show is not so much about hip-hop per se, as it is about showcasing artists who create work that reflects some of the uniqueness and spirit of the culture.
ELIGIBILITY: Open to all artists working in this medium
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
- Images must be submitted via email to: J-Mendoza [at] neiu.edu
- Images must be JPEG or GIF format ONLY
- Image list (saved as a Word document) must include: title, medium, size, year, and price (if applicable)
- Bio: maximum of 150 words
- Current curriculum vitae
CALENDAR
Deadline for Submissions: May 20, 2005
Notifications Sent: July 1, 2005
All Work to Arrive: November 26, 2005
Exhibition Dates: December 2 – 24, 2005, 2005
Opening Reception: December 2, 2005 , 6-10pm
Pick-Up Work: December 24, 2005
ACCEPTED WORK: Participating artists will be informed of selection via e-mail.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE SEND EMAIL TO: JMendoza [at] neiu.edu
MALAS NOTICIAS / BAD NEWS: Diseño para la solidaridad
Posted February 28, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
The folks from Un Mundo Feliz who particpated in the NoRNC Poster Project sent us this call for artwork.
See their NoRNC poster here.
GRAPHIC FORUM
MALAS NOTICIAS / BAD NEWS
Diseño para la solidaridad
Design for solidarity
From the 8th to the 11th of March, Madrid welcomes an international summit on "Democracy and Terrorism", in honor of the first anniversary of 11M. We would like to take advantage of this international event so that designers from different countries and cultures contribute their views and personal opinions regarding this subject. We have created a virtual gallery and would like to display in different spaces throughout the city with all the works that we receive.
This is a project for the creation and free distribution of graphic material against terrorism and supporting the victims, on the first anniversary of the 11M terrorist attack in Madrid.
MISSION
This project intends to be a public design forum for the creation of images that express points of view on terrorism and promote public debate.
Bad news/ design for solidarity wants to be a symbol for democratic response and citizen participation, on behalf of designers, against terrorism on the first anniversary of the 11M.
The project is conceived as a space that is open to designers all over the world and comes forth parallel to the conference on "Democracy and Terrorism" that will be celebrated in Madrid in February of 2005.
Bad News/ Design for Solidarity hopes to be a symbol for international solidarity against terrorism. For this we need for you to contribute with your creativity and talent.
GALLERY
Bad News/ Design for Solidarity
This is a gallery for activism, with free domain usage without commercial intentions.
CONTRIBUTE
RULES FOR PARTICIPATION
1. Submit your work:
- Files must be provided as PDF, TIF, JPG only
- Preferably DIN A4, A3...
300 dpi Resolution for printed images (that should be no bigger than 4.5 MB)
- 72 dpi Resolution for online images
- Please consider the possibility of using vectorial images and texts converted to paths (vector), since this will allow for better quality and versaility.
2. Send your work to: love[at]unmundofeliz.org with the information you deem important.
(C) 2005 Un mundo feliz /a happy world production against terrorism
Artists Against Williamsburg/Greenpoint Rezoning Plan
Posted February 26, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
The Change You Want to See Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn would like to invite you to huddle up this Sunday at 3pm. We're drafting a dream team of creative folk to take on Dr. Doctoroff and the city's insidious Williamsburg/Greenpoint Rezoning Plan. This is one of the most aggressive rezonings in NYC history. Don't get me wrong... brownfields are eyesores and a waste of space. And they make your hair fall out if you live too close to them. Development can be a great thing. It can revitalize the local economy, give businesses a boost. But there's good development and there's bad development.Come plug in at this planning meeting so's we can raise a ruckus and paint a picture of the world that we want to see.
WHERE: The Change You Want to See Gallery, 84 Havemeyer St @
Metropolitan Ave (across from Black Betty's)
WHEN: 3pm, Sunday, February 27
WHAT: planning powwow to save our city
RSVP: beka [at] notanalternative.net
The city's plan will create as many as 22 new 40-story luxury condos along the East River, will privatize and limit access to the waterfront, it provides no minimum requirement on low-income housing, will kick out the light industries in W'burg (metal shops, furniture shops, etc), won't add parks or green space, won't re-open the firehouse, won't increase L or G train service, but will bring 40,000 new higher-income residents to the hood. Instant Soho-fication on steroids. You, me, local industry and businesses, and long-time residents...PRICED OUT.
We have to move fast...there are just a few months to affect the process. A number of bad apples with dollar signs in their eyes and designs on development have partnered with the Mayor. They seek to push the diversity and creative energy that defines the Big Apple toward the fate that has destroyed the core of so many small towns across the country. There's been a lot of resistance to their rotten plan, from religious institutions, community groups, schools, and local residents. But the creative community needs to step up to the plate to support this work. We can fight back to stop the homogenization and borification of our neighborhoods. To preserve the diverse cultural landscape of our mixed-use, mixed income communities.
Invitees Include Reps From: Art Hijack, Art is Permitted Everywhere, Autonomedia,
AWAG (Anti-War Action Group), Axis of Eve, Black Label Bike Club, Blacked Out Media, Block Magazine, Bowery Poetry Club, Breaking in Style, Cinders, Circus Amok, Complacent.org, Flavorpill, Glassbead Video Collective, Greene Dragon, HOWL Festival, Hungry March Band, Independent Media Center, L Magazine, Madagascar Institute, Music for America, NoRNC Bike Project, North Brooklyn Alliance, Not an Alternative/The Change You Want to See, Oh De Twirlette, Ohms Video Collective, Repo History, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, Ring Out, Rubulad, THAW (Theaters Against the War), The City Reliquary, The Eh Team, The Lucky Cat, The Roundtable, The Williamsburg Warriors, Toyshop Collective, Visual Resistance, Vomitorium
About us: The Change You Want to See Gallery and Convergence Stage is a project of Not an Alternative, a Brooklyn-based arts collective. In support of creative resistance to the Republican National Convention last summer, Not an Alternative offered resources to artists and groups in the form of a space, arts materials, production crews, and organizing support. Not an Alternative also produced and curated larger-scale events including Majority Whipped at WhiteBox in Chelsea, and the NEO-CONey Island Block Party and Fashion Show.
$pread Magazine accepting material for 2nd issue.
Posted February 24, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
Spread is a magazine by and for sex workers of all genders, sexualities and backgrounds, as well as those interested in the sex industry.The magazine aims to provide a forum for marginalized voices, a sene of community and support among sex workers, as well as a balanced view of the sex industry.
$pread wants/needs illustrations of all kinds. They must relate, somehow or someway, to sex, gender, sex work, gender structures, or power. Think strip club, whorehouse, prostitutes, s&m, doms, subs, pretty much anything sexual done for profit.
Contributions to the second issue are to be made by mid-May. Contact the editors at: contribute [at] spreadmagazine.org or mail contributions to:
$pread Magazine
PO Box 305
New York, NY 10276
Coke Kills!
Posted February 15, 2005 by in Posters
Dont Buy Coke! The largest Coca Cola union in Colombia has called for an international campaign against Coke to stop its violence against workers, which has included a half-dozen murders at one plant alone in the mid-1990’s. Reports of these crimes sparked a historic lawsuit against the Coca Cola Company and their Colombian bottler by the International Labor Rights Fund and the United Steelworkers of America on behalf of the Colombian union.
Coca-Cola has formally stated that the “Company does not anticipate supporting in any way any form of ‘independent fact-finding delegation to Colombia,’” and has even refused a preliminary meeting with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an objective monitoring group created by college and university administrations, students and labor rights experts.
There is also an intense struggle being faught by people in India against the Coca-Cola Company.
An independent media website called Inida Resource Center charges that Coca-Cola is guilty of:
- Causing Severe Water Shortages for Communities Across India
- Polluting Groundwater and Soil Around its Bottling Facilities
- Distributing its Toxic Waste as "Fertilizer" to Farmers
- Selling Drinks with Extremely High Levels of Pesticides
I downloaded the above photo from the Indian Resource Center photo page. The photo features anti-Coke demonstrators who clashed with police in Mehdiganj, India.
Currently, there are many local students working to get coke banned from their campuses and to get their school administrations to endorse an investigation by the WRC into the allegations of violence in Columbia.
Here are some visual resources (poster and flyer designs) that have been used to rally oposition against Coke. If you want to start organizing around this issue, or if you already have, please feel free to download these images or to send us images you've made yourself.
I got most of these images from www.cokewatch.org and www.killercoke.org. These websites are also a great way to find out updates on the anti-Coke campaign.
May 1st Poster Contest
Posted February 9, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
A heads up to our artist friends:
Calling all artists and designers! On May 1st , 2005, there will be a huge demonstration in New York City highlighting the critical need to ban nuclear weapons.... This event needs to be publicized with unique, eye-catching, heart-stopping imagery. We need homegrown provocative design to remind people that the nuclear issue isn't over.We're asking local artists to submit work that will be splashed on posters, banners, flyers, websites and tshirts around the world. The work should be passionate and pointed, focused on this giant new effort to abolish nukes exactly 60 years after they destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We're looking for designs that are bright and forward-thinking, taking anti-nuclear and anti-war symbols into a whole new era. See AbolitionNow.org for more information about the movement and the event.
Read the whole call here.
Teenage Lobotomy: a zine about the institutionalization about youth
Posted January 11, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
This is a project by one of the artists in the Icarus Project art show:
Submit to a new reader about the abusive institutions for youth! The reader will constist of:
--- An introduction to the abuses that take plase at theraputic boarding schools, residential treatment facilities, and wilderness programs;
--- Personal stories and interviews from students, parents, and ex-teachers;
--- Discussionof alternative ways to help "troubled" teens, including art therapy, various forms of counseling (such as utilizing A.A. outpatient programs or talking to mentors for help), and other programs that encourage healing in positive ways;
--- Information about mental health, youth emancipation and maneuvering "the system" (such as the prison system and juvenile detention centers)
WE NEED YOUR STORIES! Please submit your experience by late January 2005, and keep it under three pages. This reader is being compiled by two teenage artists and writers --- Nick, who was locked up in the Family foundation School in New York, Second Nature Wilderness Program in Utah, and Paint Paul's Prep School in Arizona, and his close friend Sarah (Ketchup).
What would you do if you were woken up tomorrow at the crack of dawn by two large men, handcuffed, dragged out of your home, and thrown in the back of a van? What would you think as this van takes you hundreds of miles away from your neighborhood and drops you off in an institution of white walls, flourescent lights, and cold linoleum floors? How would you respond to the people in this institution when they force you to stand in a corner for weeks on end, to lift your knees to your waistline when you walk, to be silent when you want to be loud, to be loud when you want to be silent, and to carry buckets of rocks back and forth for twelve hours each day? Would you resist, rebel, run away, kill yourself? What if they locked you in a tiny room that smelled like urine and blasted A.A. tapes until you submit? What if they took your food away? Had someone follow you around all the time, even watching you shit? What if you were completely stuck in a behavior modification program like this for two years without seeing your friends, your home, or anything that might remind you of the real world?
These places exist, and kids are sent to them everyday. Parents have complete legal control over their children until the age of eighteen, and these institutions prey on parents' frustrations, convincing them to sign away their child's rights. Behavior modification programs reflect our society's attitude towards youth, treating us as less than full human beings. There is a vicious cycle where kids are treated with mistrust and thus don't learn to take responsibility for their actions. Many of us have caught onto the fact that the education system is actually an indoctrination system. School kills our curiousity, by teaching us that learning means sitting in rows for twelve yars, force-fed information by an authority figure. Some of us are even forced into group homes, juvenile detention centers, and spirit-destroying institutions like the one described above.
Why do adults feel the need to exert such ri