Dedicated to clever and innovative trends of art and design in activism.

The Groundswell Collective are beer lovers. We’re also activists, and thus our appreciation for FREE BEER abounds. The bar has been set high by these folks and we’d like very much to join the ranks of activist brewers. One day soon, we hope you’ll see Groundswell Brewing on a keg like the one below. In the meantime, you’ll have to read about the FREE BEER folks who’ve inspired us, and catch up on the rest of this week’s stories. Cheers!

It was noticible that, in the few stories we wrote this week, Yo! What Happened to Peace? appeared so frequently.  Check out the links below and see the connections for yourself:

• Above: FREE BEER
• Gee Vaucher’s CRASS Art
• The Art of Politics 2008
• ArtPolitic

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ArtPolitic is an artists’ collective addressing important social and political issues.  They “seek to promote thought, interest, and passion for a variety of diverse social issues,” and “to inform others and incite change through . . . art.”

Their work is visually and politically engaging.  They even have a forum for discussion of their many themed galleries, which they’ve dubbed “campaigns.”  They’ve dealt with abortion, guns, majority rule, and several other topics.  Even their website, though in disrepair, is nicely done.

ArtPolitic thinks art can change minds, and they highlight something about that effort that is worth bringing to the fore - an appreciation for aesthetics and form that I find is typically lacking in activist considerations:

Our art is strong and opinionated, and anything you see here will have a definite message, not merely eye-candy. However, as artists, we are incredibly aware of the value of aesthetics and form, which goes hand-in-hand with content, so everything you look at will not only be meaningful, it will be attractive to the eye as well.

They are on to something unique, and they admit that “ArtPolitic is a new type of art-group.”  I, for one, am buying.

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We all know the failings of public opinion polls, or at least recognize how malleable they are in the hands of reporters, so how can we better gauge what’s important to a group of Americans? Art of Politics founders Leslie Mestman and Summer Lewis say “poster art.” Their effort is a nationwide competition, “a visual expression of issues reflecting the diversity of our country,” according to their website.

Mestman and Lewis have assembled an apt team of judges, including John Carr of Yo! What Happened to Peace? In May, People’s Choice voting opens online for one month, and the top 30 will be exhibited around the country. They just recently opened their call for submissions, so get designing!

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Last month, Gee Vaucher showed a retrospective of her work with Crass, the 1970s British anarcho-punk band. San Francisco’s Jack Hanley Gallery played host, and in the crowd were Jello Biafra, and, oddly enough, NBC.

During the final three days of the exhibit, Yo! What Happened to Peace? artists were invited to collaborate with Gee.  Artist and blogger Mark Valen reports:

Yo! organizer and curator, John Carr, has arranged a collaboration with Gee Vaucher and the Jack Hanley Gallery. On Jan. 17, 18 and 19, artists from the Yo! project will work in partnership with Gee Vaucher and Penny Rimbaud (also from Crass), to present a Yo! print exhibit and live poster screen printing event at the gallery.

Some incredible artists partook, including Eric Drooker, and Favianna Rodriguez.  Check out a gallery of the event, including some close-ups of Gee’s work at the Supertouch blog.

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We must be dreaming. First we caught word of überbrü, the überculture Collective’s effort at a nonprofit, counter-culture beer, now sadly defunct. Now, FREE BEER. Originally conceived by Copenhagen-based artist collective Superflex and students at the Copenhagen IT University, this brew applies modern free software / open source methods to a traditional real-world product - namely the alcoholic beverage loved and enjoyed globally, commonly known as beer.

Still in the dark about what they mean? Here’s a good synopsis:

The recipe and the FREE BEER brand is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, which basically means that anyone can use our recipe to brew the beer or to create a derivative of our recipe. You are free to earn money from FREE BEER, but you have to publish the recipe under the same license (e.g. on your website or, better still, on this webpage) and credit our work. You can use all our design and branding elements, and are free to change them at will provided you publish your changes under the same license (”Attribution - ShareAlike”).

FREE BEER has earned its accolades.  Besides causing a buzz (pun intended) in Wired Magazine, Slashdot, and the BBC, they’ve been served at Tate and Van Abbemuseum openings, nevermind Creative Commons’ birthday party.

If you read our bio, you’ll notice the whole thing hinges around beer. My sister once aptly described the company we keep as “beer people.”  The notion of a radical beer is, as I’ve stated before, perhaps one of the best and most artful activist ideas ever hatched.  Who wants to start brewing?

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