Pop culture
Heading to Maui for an Artist in Residence
Posted June 30, 2010 by Favianna_Rodriguez
Attention Maui Residents! I will be in Maui in less than two weeks for an artist in residency at the Hui No‘eau Visual Arts Center. My task is to engage Maui-based nonprofit organizations to develop a case study about how artists can collaborate with non-arts community groups to develop messages around social justice on a local scale. I will be hosting a wide range of hands-on activities, including a teen intensive workshops focusing on printmaking and street graphics. All prospective students under the age of 18 are eligible for financial aid to help offset the cost of tuition. The Hui is a place that has been visited by some of my favorite artists, such as Swoon, Enrique Chagoya, and Artemio Rodriguez.
If you are in Maui, pls come check out some of the events! Sign up now!
Avatar-same old story
Posted January 5, 2010 by k_c_ in Film & Video
Just saw Avatar tonight. I appreciated the anti-capitalist, pro-environment message, its too bad it comes in the tired narrative of whitey coming to save the natives. It was exciting, the CGI was entertaining and helped numb the brain enough to deal with the bad dialogue.
The movie represents the characters relationship to Capitalism as a permeating factor in life's choices and lays bare its systemic view towards nature-resources to be extracted, to make objects for consumption, leading to profits/wealth for a few (late night simplicity for ya).
So what should one do about it? Well, the conscientious objection of one character during a "battle" scene still leads to the incredible devastation of the indigenous characters homeland. The real resolution portrayed in the film is-direct action and armed resistance.
From this portrayal I wonder if this film is capable of encouraging civil society and our governing institutions to expand the definitions of "resistance", reducing those of "terrorism". Because identifying with the films protagonists aligns one to many of the animal & environmental activists, and political prisoners incarcerated in the United States today. But that's a lot to expect from art, isn't it?
I also question "if a gabillion dollars was given to make a film from a perspective other than the white male hero, what would it look like?"
I guess we'll find out when that story can sell over a billion dollars in cinema tickets, worldwide!
Climate activists succesfully block European Business Conference
Posted October 29, 2009 by k_c_ in In the News
October 28th, 2009. For over one and a half hours, hundreds of corporate lobbyists wishing to attend the annual BusinessEurope conference were prevented from entering the Charlemagne building.The Climate action group Climate Alarm!, consisting of activists from Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany, blocked the main entrance to the conference.
Some more info on this action can be found at Climate IMC
This makes me so happy tears form in my eyes, I like people that care. Thanks to everyone that organized and executed this!
It should happen everywhere, everyday!
Supply & Demand: The Hollow Magic of Shepard Fairey
Posted October 27, 2009 by shaun in Art & Politics
[Full disclosure - the author of this article has been employed multiple times in the Education Department of the Andy Warhol Museum as recently as June 2009, teaching screen-printing to high school students.]
Last week, Shepard Fairey opened a massive retrospective exhibition at Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum. "Supply and Demand" drew a sold-out opening night crowd that watched Fairey DJ alongside Z-Trip while sporting a swank three-piece suit. In the months prior, Fairey and his team toured around Pittsburgh wheat-pasting his familiar designs on building facades both permitted and not, and across from the museum he installed a temporary mural over top of a pre-existing mural by a younger local artist. The silent, creeping presence of Fairey's designs around the city felt eerily similar to the lead-up for the G20 summit this past September, in which faceless PR firms delivered meaningless graphics touting business and lifestyle opportunities to cover dozens of vacant storefronts in downtown in an attempt to scrub the visual landscape. All of this new wallpaper gave an impending and queasy feeling to anyone paying attention: Pittsburgh, once again and without consent, would play host as a playground for the powerful.
