Activism as Art

Activist practices that use performance and create media events, as well as practices within the fields of Community Art, Education, Research and Ecological Art, blur the boundaries between art and activism.

A mother with children, floating lanterns with messages and drawings for peace. (At 7:25 p.m. on August 6th, Motoyasu River, Naka-ku, Hiroshima from http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/99e/News/News13.html

As an annual commemoration of those killed in the atomic holocaust, each August 6th thousands of people line the banks of Motoyasu River in Hiroshima to float small paper lanterns out to sea. This river was filled with burnt bodies and corpses on August 6, 1945, as people fled to the water to escape the flames and heat of the first atomic bomb. The lanterns are thought to console the spirits of the dead. Begun in 1947 by survivors of the attack, this beautiful ritual continues.

Beth Carruthers (2006) notes, “Greenpeace, born in Vancouver … in the late 1960s and early 70s, pioneered the practice of performance in ecoactivist interventions. Bob Hunter, a founding member, was a journalist with a finely honed sense of the dramatic gesture. Influenced by the theories of Marshal MacLuhan as reconfigured by Hunter, Greenpeace developed a series of highly choreographed and dramatic interventions performed for the media, and hence, the world stage. This performing of intervention has remained a trademark of Greenpeace. Here is a recent example: Greenpeace activists, dramatically clad in white coveralls and wearing breathing masks, engage in a highly choreographed performance of scything GMO crops and stuffing them into “biohazard” bags.” http://www.unesco.ca/en/activity/sciences/documents/BethCarruthersArtinEcologyResearchReportEnglish.pdf

Aerial view of a crop circle made by local farmers and Greenpeace volunteers in Isabela province, 300 km northeast of Manila. The crop circle, with a slash over the letter 'M' symbolizes farmer's rejection of genetically-modified Bt corn crops from Monsanto corporation.

Retrieved November 16, 2006 from http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/photosvideos

PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is another activist group that has used techniques from advertising and art.

“Since September of 2001, Christopher Loch has been designing and screen printing original political t-shirts. He initiated this counter propaganda t-shirt project in response to the blitzkrieg of racist, pro-war propaganda that hit the United States just after the September 11th attacks.” See http://powderhornartfair.org/bios/loch05.htm

Caffyn Kelley explores the difference between art and activism an article entitled “Art and Life.” She compares a meat dress fabricated by feminist activist Ann Simonton with a meat dress fabricated by artist Jana Sterbak:

"Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic," the exhibit was created by Montreal artist Jana Sterbak to emphasize the contrast between vanity and bodily decay. http://www.snopes.com/politics/arts/meatdress.asp	Ann Simonton dresses in a meat dress “to dramatize the subhuman image that is often projected upon women in advertising and entertainment.” http://gradethenews.org/pages2/simonton.htm

“Simonton’s dress is made to be in an activist context and it depends on that context for its meanings. Her dress refers us to the exploitation of women, the equation of women and meat, the consumption of women, the fabrication of women in the context of an audience engaged in active resistance to the status quo. In the art-world space, the meat dress does not necessarily mean anything except that it has been accorded value a unique art object. In cooperation with art-world tradition, Jana Sterbak “eschews any ideology, any ‘ism,’ even feminism” (Duncan 1991a). But whatever the artist thinks, in the art-world space where it appears as a commodity the object achieves an independence that quashes its social import yet opens its significance to private meanings. Probably it is only in the art-world context that one could speak of the meat dress as critic Marni Jackson does, for example. .. She writes: “It’s a way of filleting the self into spirit and flesh for a moment, so that the ‘I’ can feel the sensation of this ungainly and perishable body. Flesh Dress undresses us down to spirit” (1989, 68).”

See http://www.saltspring.com/hideaway/Caffyn/Papers/ArtAndLife.pdf

'Work, consume, be silent, die' a grim warning on a suit worn and designed by mime artist Benny Zable at many protests. Environmental protesters shaped much of our current awareness in Australia. Over the years they have set the stage for the sustainability movement. Photo by Powerhouse Museum (Sue Stafford) http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/education/ecologic/measuringwellbeing.htm