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

As I’m working on a poster for the Just Seeds Celebrate People’s History poster project, I’m finding more inspiration in the roots of creative activism.  This July 12 marked Pablo Neruda’s 104th birthday, and although he passed away in 1973, it remains a worthy cause for celebration.  Below is a video by 4SeasonsProductions, a montage that features an English translation of Neruda’s “Standard Oil Co.”

Of Standard Oil, one of the most remembered corporations of the robber baron era, Neruda wrote:

They buy countries, people, seas, police, county councils,
distant regions where the poor hoard their corn
like misers their gold:
Standard Oil awakens them,
clothes them in uniforms, designates
which brother is the enemy.
the Paraguayan fights its war,
and the Bolivian wastes away
in the jungle with its machine gun.

Via

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OpenSourceCinema.org has organized the Copyright Criminals project, now a few months old, to satirize the criminalization of everyday acts.  By asking individuals (who generally don’t identify with criminality) to photograph themselves in the style of a mug shot, they aim to portray the intellectual property regime as an invasive, authoritarian, yet outmoded force.

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The new Cut and Paint stencil template zine is now available! This one includes photo spreads, essays, how-to articles about moss graffiti and micro-stencils, and (of course) a bevy of copyright-free stencils for your painting pleasure!

Given the popularity of the first edition, they’ve doubled the run for #2 - grab your copy from the Just Seeds ordering website today.

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Mother Jones’s Torture Playlist includes the music used in American military prisons to torture detainees, and ranges from Christina Aguilera to Sesame Street.  I’ve developed the stickers below to raise awareness about this form of torture

Using address labels - sized 2.25″ x 0.75″ - you can affix these stickers to CDs in your local record shop and make a small political statement about state violence. Download the PDF here.

There’s no copyright on these, so feel free to spread widely, with and without permission.  If you take some pictures of your work, let us know!

For your convenience, here’s the Torture Playlist:

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PRINT Magazine’s July/August edition contains an article on the role of type in politics by Social Design Notes author John Emerson.  The article details the many ways that states have used typography in creating nationalism (sometimes to the point of dictatorial uniformity), as well as the ways that social movements have used type to create identities for marginalized groups - well worth the read.

Also, John encourages readers to see the typography section of Social Design Notes for reference and further reading.

Illustration by Joon Mo Kang

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