tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/arts-activism-19623/articlesArts activism – The Conversation2022-10-10T13:33:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1920322022-10-10T13:33:00Z2022-10-10T13:33:00ZSimi and Bella Shmurda: two Afrobeats stars reveal a growing tendency to abuse Fela Kuti<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488558/original/file-20221006-14-28lsz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frans Schellekens/Redferns via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There can no longer be any doubt that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-provocateur-fela-kuti-who-used-sex-and-politics-to-confront-58599">Fela Anikulapo-Kuti</a>, the legendary Nigerian musician, activist and father of Afrobeat music, has become an easy career booster for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-daughters-and-sons-of-fela-in-african-pop-138739">today’s</a> Afrobeats artists who are undergoing creative droughts. </p>
<p>Fela’s invention, <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/afrobeat-music-guide#what-is-afrobeat">Afrobeat</a>, is an ensemble and performance-based category that blends jazz, funk, rock and traditional West African chant and rhythms. It originated in the early 1970s through continued experimentation after a stint with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/highlife-African-music">highlife</a> music. <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/afrobeat-history">Afrobeats</a>, however, is a 21st century creation of beat-heavy electronic pop music from Nigeria with steadily growing global audiences. It’s become an umbrella term describing the music of contemporary West African stars, including the likes of <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-nigerian-music-star-wizkid-and-why-is-he-taking-over-the-world-179775">Wizkid</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-burna-boy-set-the-world-alight-with-his-mixed-brew-of-influences-188080">Burna Boy</a> and <a href="https://www.leadingvibe.com">Tems</a>. </p>
<p>Over the course of a decade (2010-2020), Afrobeats stars managed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tricky-legacy-how-fela-lives-on-in-pop-stars-like-wizkid-and-wyclef-135558">appropriate</a> the text, synthesise the sound, conjure the appearance and invoke the name and symbolisms of Fela in their works in various ways, often as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-daughters-and-sons-of-fela-in-african-pop-138739">tribute</a>. </p>
<p>Since my last major <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00020184.2020.1750349">study</a> on how Afrobeats uses and reframes Fela, several Afrobeats practitioners have laboured – and failed – to tap from him in exciting new ways.</p>
<p>In fact, the post-2020 class has reached for Fela’s source in ways that barely recognise the stature of the late icon. As I have noted elsewhere, Nigerian artists often resort to <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-81969-9_9">activism pranks</a> to shore up their creative deficiencies. Indeed, there is a sense that an association with the Fela brand and imagery confers on an artist some sort of critical ethos – one which audiences are beginning to see through.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-daughters-and-sons-of-fela-in-african-pop-138739">The daughters and sons of Fela in African Pop</a>
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<p>Two recent examples form the crux of my argument: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udnkr-pMRa8">Woman</a> by Simi (2021) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdJRLTSX6Zc">New Born Fela</a> by Bella Shmurda (2022). It is noteworthy that both singles represent their first attempt at openly drawing from Fela. </p>
<p>While Simi had to invoke the works of Fela, a renowned anti-feminist, to make a feminist point, Shmurda opted to become the new born version of an icon no one expects a reincarnation of. Particularly in the latter case, it was done to the detriment of musical coherence and logic. </p>
<h2>Case 1: Simi</h2>
<p><a href="https://afrobeatsintelligence.substack.com/p/simi-studio-brat-genius">Simi</a> is a 34-year-old Nigerian female Afrobeats artist known as “studio brat” because she is quite adept at mixing and mastering music. (Fela’s dexterity with several instruments informed his christening as a “musician’s musician”, whereas the pioneers of Afrobeats have been berated for their inability to play musical instruments. The scenario is, however, different with contemporary Afrobeats, where many artists are producer-musicians with foundations in playing instruments or in music production.)</p>
<p>In her unapologetically feminist single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udnkr-pMRa8">Woman</a>, Simi samples copious (at least five) Afrobeat works from Fela – demonstrating the breadth of how his catalogue could be applied, while taking a swipe at the age-long suppressions that women have faced. </p>
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<p>In the process, Simi alters Fela’s texts to suit her immediate purposes even as her lyrics in Woman sharply contrast the message in his song Lady. Fela advances subordination as a virtue of the traditional African woman. Simi, however, has had enough of females submitting to males while also facing intimidation from society.</p>
<p>At the heart of Woman is the contradiction between a feminist ethos and all that Fela <a href="https://msafropolitan.com/2013/08/african-feminist-analysis-fela-lady.html">represented</a>. Yet this doesn’t deter Simi from pursuing a successful single in a brazen manifestation of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rob%20Peter%20to%20pay%20Paul">robbing Peter to pay Paul</a>. Fela’s essence might have been antithetical to any and everything feminist, but his songs may be applied in conveying such a message – so long as the artist smiles all the way to the bank.</p>
<h2>Case 2: Bella Shmurda</h2>
<p>At 25, <a href="https://pan-african-music.com/en/bella-shmurda/">Bella Shmurda</a> is a newer age Afrobeats practitioner. Since gaining prominence with the single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7bKNj87Fm8">Vision 2020</a> (2019), he has been unable to sustain a coherent musical direction. Indeed, subsequent successful singles like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1S66UhdIwA">Cash App</a> (2020) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdw7Ls3kgaI">Rush</a> (2021) have done little to present him as an artist with a consistent style or philosophy. </p>
<p>To put it simply, to <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-98705-3_9">many</a> Afrobeats audiences, Bella Shmurda is a confused artist whose music has never stood for anything distinguishable. So it wasn’t surprising when he released the single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdJRLTSX6Zc">New Born Fela</a>. </p>
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<p>In the song, Bella Shmurda is preoccupied with rebranding himself as a sort of modern day incarnation of Fela. It feels like he and his team came up with a title and then proceeded to write lyrics to make it work. The outcome is forced and unconvincing and the single faded away almost at once. </p>
<p>There is almost nothing about New Born Fela that invokes any meaningful thoughts on Fela. It was merely a catchy title invoked by a drowning artist who seemed to care little about how he would be portrayed once audiences figured out how hollow his material was. While the video strives to capture the aesthetics that defined Fela’s <a href="https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/38107">Afrobeat Queens</a>, Bella Shmurda himself falls starkly short of replicating Fela. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Bella Shmurda has followed New Born Fela with the single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe_mmOWhgDU">Philo</a> (2022), another far cry from any of his previous works.</p>
<h2>Era of opportunism</h2>
<p>While it may be convenient and useful to be inspired by Fela in order to borrow his influence and spirit, these two recent applications suggest a sort of desperation – even an outright opportunism on the part of today’s artists.</p>
<p>One keen Afrobeats listener in Lagos, Nigeria <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-98705-3_9">offered</a> what should be food for thought for contemporary Afrobeats artists: </p>
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<p>We have seen Fela, we have heard Fela. Now we want to see you.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garhe Osiebe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nigeria’s Afrobeats stars love to identify with Fela’s activism and music - but their tributes are becoming opportunistic and empty.Garhe Osiebe, Research Fellow, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1658952021-08-17T14:38:19Z2021-08-17T14:38:19ZHow a film is fighting the erasure of South African activist Dulcie September<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415823/original/file-20210812-13-xw4x8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A demonstration in memory of Dulcie September, Paris 1988.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Georges Merillon/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Film impact involves designing and implementing strategies to ensure a social justice film reaches the right audience so it has the best chance to bring about the desired change. Social change takes many forms, from creating awareness and changing perception to behaviour and policy change. </p>
<p>South Africa, like any country, has a unique set of characteristics that influence how films reach audiences. That’s why it’s so important to document and share case studies of local impact campaigns that cater to the South African context, audiences, challenges and opportunities.</p>
<p>With this in mind, I hosted a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NAka21kDW0&list=PLP68yQggmdOzTn8nM5jK6YLb7QfRXu2i4&index=2">panel discussion</a> about the impact campaign of <a href="https://murderinparis.com/home"><em>Murder in Paris</em></a> at the <a href="https://www.encounters.co.za/">Encounters</a> documentary festival recently. The event was supported by the University of Cape Town and Sunshine Cinema’s Film Screening Impact Facilitator <a href="https://www.sunshinecinema.org/impact-facilitator-course">course</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415827/original/file-20210812-19-1huv6a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a floral jersey and glasses, hair in a bun, sits in front of a poster of Nelson Mandela." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415827/original/file-20210812-19-1huv6a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415827/original/file-20210812-19-1huv6a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415827/original/file-20210812-19-1huv6a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415827/original/file-20210812-19-1huv6a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415827/original/file-20210812-19-1huv6a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415827/original/file-20210812-19-1huv6a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415827/original/file-20210812-19-1huv6a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Dulcie September in 1985.</span>
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<p><em><a href="https://mg.co.za/friday/2021-06-12-review-murder-in-paris-who-killed-dulcie-september/">Murder in Paris</a></em> tells of the 1988 assassination of <a href="https://murderinparis.com/dulcie">Dulcie September</a>, an anti-<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> activist jailed by the South African government who later left the country. In exile she worked for the resistance, the African National Congress (ANC), becoming its chief representative in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg. </p>
<p>The fast-paced documentary reveals the ongoing attempts by her family and a journalist to find justice, revisiting and interrogating the cold case. Most <a href="https://ccadiff.ukzn.ac.za/durban-international-film-festival-announces-awards-winners-and-adds-three-new-categories/">recently</a> it shared the Best South African Documentary Award at the <a href="https://www.durbanfilmfest.com/">Durban International Film Festival</a>. Director Enver Michael Samuel also won the festival’s Human Rights Award. </p>
<p>The panel discussion with Samuel and the film’s impact producer Miki Redelinghuys covered the film’s impact goals and some of the tough distribution decisions they’ve had to make to reach the right audiences to try and bring about awareness and change. </p>
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<h2>What were the impact goals for the film?</h2>
<p><strong>Miki Redelinghuys:</strong> The low hanging fruit of any impact is awareness. It’s also the first impact goal in this campaign, but we’re calling that “the (un)erasure”. Secondly, a big driver is “justice for Dulcie”. Thirdly, addressing family trauma. So very clear, very simple <a href="https://murderinparis.com/take-action">impact goals</a> … We were guided by a quote <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2019/08/the-erasure-of-dulcie-september">from</a> academics Kelly-Eve Koopman and Rasmus Bitsch:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The cost of erasing Dulcie September and others like her is not only the billions that could have been spent on a society in dire need. It is also the opportunity to accurately understand the past in order to improve the future. And, of course, justice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Enver Samuel:</strong> I knew there was going to be something strategic that needed to be in place because it wasn’t going to be that the broadcast stage was the be all and end all … The documentary had to take on another life after the broadcast, which it is actually doing at the moment.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EMS Productions/Murder in Paris</span></span>
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<p>This erasure of Dulcie September is ongoing … When you tell people about (her) generally – if you’re not within ANC circles – the question is: ‘Dulcie what? Dulcie, who is that?’ Then when you explain, it’s: ‘Oh my, why didn’t I know about this person?’ So, I think we are contributing to un-erasing the name of Dulcie September.</p>
<p><strong>Miki Redelinghuys:</strong> Key to this process has been building a community. Liezl Vermeulen, the co-impact producer on this project, has been working hard on building a community alongside Enver, from 2018 already. Reaching out to people, gathering names. Gradually placing the story out there, getting people to interact on social media, subscribing to a newsletter. Our <a href="https://www.instagram.com/rememberdulcieseptember/">#RememberDulcieSeptember</a> campaign, to be implemented by doing screenings and a school campaign, rolls out in August, which is women’s month and also Dulcie’s birthday month. And then “say her name” making Dulcie visible in public spaces; a public art campaign; and actively driving for key landmarks to be named in recognition of Dulcie.</p>
<h2>Can you tell us more about the justice for Dulcie aspect of the campaign?</h2>
<p><strong>Enver Samuel:</strong> It’s become one of our pinnacle goals. It’s 33 years later and the family are still suffering the anguish of not knowing (who killed Dulcie)… The <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%202.pdf#page=124">failed them</a>. The French courts failed them. So, they have recently (started an) initiative to <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-07-28-family-of-slain-anc-struggle-activist-dulcie-september-wants-murder-case-reopened/">get the case reopened</a>. And I’m pleased to say that their French lawyers have said they’ll introduce the documentary as part of the evidence submission to get it reopened.</p>
<h2>How did the trauma you observed while making the film drive the social justice work?</h2>
<p><strong>Enver Samuel:</strong> When that window is open for you as an observer, making a documentary, you start to realise the pain and the anguish of the families … the bodies are bent, the language, the voice, you know. I guess that is in some ways my driving motivation to try and tell these stories.</p>
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<p><strong>Miki Redelinghuys:</strong> That motivation drives the third goal in the impact campaign, #MerciDulcie (Thank you Dulcie) which is about using the film to address family trauma, to open dialogues … to revisit this unresolved pain. Not that we, for one minute, think the film can offer resolution. But I think there’s a certain healing in recognition and dialogue.</p>
<h2>Why was it important to prioritise screenings on the public broadcaster in South Africa?</h2>
<p><strong>Enver Samuel:</strong> That’s where you get the bums on seats. For me, that’s always been the main mission. I’ve done it with the three documentaries I’ve just made. If you’re making these types of documentaries, the more people that see it the better, because that’s contributing to the un-erasure. </p>
<p>So, I pushed with <a href="http://www.sabc3.co.za/sabc3/">SABC3</a> to also get the documentary shown on a significant day, <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/project-event-details/2">Human Rights Day</a> … The second part (was broadcast) one day before the 33rd anniversary of Dulcie’s assassination. Going this way has borne some fruit because the documentary made the top 15 of the audience ratings for SABC3 (in the month it was broadcast). That jeopardised my film festival chances, because it can’t be entered into official competition. So that’s something filmmakers must keep in mind. But for me that wasn’t a reason to (not) roll it out.</p>
<h2>How are your distribution plans for Europe different?</h2>
<p><strong>Enver Samuel:</strong> France is clamouring to watch the documentary. I mean, Dulcie was there for five years. If you look at the archive footage during her funeral you would think that it was a funeral for a rock star. Currently we are re-cutting the documentary for a European audience … We arranged for a travelling exhibition on Dulcie September’s life to come to the <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/about-the-centre-of-memory1">Nelson Mandela Foundation</a> (when French president Macron was on a state visit to South Africa). The CEO took President Macron <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/media-statement-president-emmanuel-macron-visits-nelson-mandela-foundation">on a tour</a>. And … he knew who Dulcie September was. He knew that she had been assassinated there, and, he uttered – for us – <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/french-president-macron-pledges-support-in-investigation-of-anc-leader-dulcie-septembers-assassination/2092836">the immortal words</a>: “We will look into it.” The French lawyers are over the moon by this.</p>
<p><strong>Miki Redelinghuys:</strong> That was a big moment for us and we continue to build on that … And as Enver mentioned earlier, that part of the campaign is actually making it into the international version of the edit as well. So the two are constantly connecting: the film and the campaign itself.</p>
<p><em>Questions have been adapted and minor edits were applied to answers for ease of reading</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liani Maasdorp is affiliated with the Documentary Filmmakers' Association (DFA).</span></em></p>The 1988 murder of the exiled ANC leader has never been solved – but by raising awareness and targeting core viewers, the film aims to help change that.Liani Maasdorp, Senior lecturer in Screen Production and Film and Television Studies, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1279482019-12-04T14:13:14Z2019-12-04T14:13:14ZCollage art and activism in Chile: Instagram posts building on the legacy of Latin American ‘mail art’<p>Since widespread protests started in October 2019 in Chile, social media has become a key way for artists and activists to circulate and exchange information and ideas. Independently curated Instagram feed <a href="https://www.instagram.com/collagechile/">@CollageChile</a> has taken a particularly prominent role. The work, in form and dissemination, echoes 20th-century mail art and collage practice from Latin America, a practice that involved postcard-sized art sent through the postal system that challenged the region’s authoritarian regimes in the 1960s and 80s.</p>
<p>On October 18 2019, protesters took to the streets of the Chilean capital Santiago, angered by a proposed increase in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/18/chile-students-mass-fare-dodging-expands-into-city-wide-protest">Metro fares</a>. What started as a local protest about a specific issue, led to rioting and exposed mass discontent. The protests are the largest the country has seen since the end of the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in 1990. </p>
<p>Chile’s president Sebastian Piñera, who is politically centre-right, responded by putting the military on the streets and declaring a state of emergency. He <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/dead-santiago-supermarket-set-fire-191020052021604.html">declared</a>: “We are at war against a powerful enemy, who is willing to use violence without any limits”.</p>
<p>Piñera’s actions produced further protests and he was forced to <a href="https://theconversation.com/chile-protests-escalate-as-widespread-dissatisfaction-shakes-foundations-of-countrys-economic-success-story-125628">table constitutional change</a>. The president’s comments – and the ease with which he imposed severe measures – prompted widespread disapproval by Chileans who took to social media with the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23noestamosenguerra&src=typed_query">#noestamosenguerra</a> (#wearenotatwar). </p>
<h2>Instagram activism</h2>
<p>Activists have used social media to report and denounce human rights abuses by police and military. Videos posted show police beating and firing live rounds at unarmed protesters. Particularly gruesome images show the results of police firing pellets directly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/world/americas/chile-protests-eye-injuries.html">into protestors’ faces to blind them</a>.</p>
<p>Artists on @collagechile have also used its large and instantaneous networks for political effect. A feed of images from the past connect viewers with what is at stake in the present. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B5IlNkgFKOj/"><em>Perfecto distingo lo negro del blanco</em></a> (Perfectly I Distinguish Black from White) by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mattialmg/">@mattialmg</a> takes its title from Chile’s foremost poet and songwriter, Violeta Parra. Parra’s folk protest songs still resonate in Chile after her death in 1967. Parra is depicted wearing an eye patch, a symbol for protesters blinded by police. The collage implies that while the state blinds its citizens to reality, both literally and metaphorically, people cannot be prevented from seeing realities of inequality and state violence in Chile today.</p>
<p>Pinochet’s face menaces some of the collages, highlighting that the current government’s reaction is a dark reminder of his dictatorship from 1973 to 1990. In fact, Piñera relied on powers rooted in the constitution drafted and implemented by Pinochet’s regime (Articles 39-45) and commentators question whether they have been used <a href="https://www.uchile.cl/noticias/158804/ha-sido-ilegal-la-implementacion-del-estado-de-emergencia">legitimately in this case</a>. Many have fought for greater changes to Pinochet’s constitutional legacy, which they believe <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/chiles-constitutional-moment/">favours the country’s political and economic elite</a>. </p>
<p>In <em>La misma mierda, distinto olor</em> (Same shit, different smell) by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ordeph/">@ordeph</a>, images of Pinochet’s military junta are mixed with images of contemporary politicians. Piñera’s face is positioned next to Pinochet’s, their faces connected by a bold red intestinal shape. Chile’s past is digested and blended with the present to link the past’s authoritarian leaders with today’s politicians. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304456/original/file-20191129-95250-pwpz6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304456/original/file-20191129-95250-pwpz6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304456/original/file-20191129-95250-pwpz6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304456/original/file-20191129-95250-pwpz6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304456/original/file-20191129-95250-pwpz6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304456/original/file-20191129-95250-pwpz6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304456/original/file-20191129-95250-pwpz6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">La misma mierda, distinto olor!!</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://66.media.tumblr.com/1e0d233029a810f475c9804f83b68d17/088364f90c89ace5-e8/s1280x1920/f45d53ffd332cf9fd4a8e5acba3c8ce63a9ded3e.jpg">@Ordep/Instagram</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Sharing these image via social media builds on a legacy of artists using collage and disrupting media messages seen in Latin American <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/mail-art">mail art</a>, which began to be practised in the 1960s and was a global movement. Mail artists created small postcard-sized art works which included visual poems, collage or drawings that were shared through the postal system.</p>
<p>Social media, however, takes these exchanges further by connecting more people via hashtags and Instagram feeds. Each time Piñera restates that the country is in a <a href="https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nacional/chile/2019/11/28/pinera-en-ceremonia-de-nuevos-pdi-estamos-enfrentando-a-un-enemigo-poderoso-e-implacable.shtml">war with a powerful enemy</a>, artists respond quickly with collages that challenge the president’s own narrative. </p>
<h2>Pre-digital circuits of exchange</h2>
<p>Artists in South America engaged with <a href="http://sfaq.us/2014/12/fifty-years-of-latin-american-mail-art/">the practice</a> to subvert censorship and create circuits of exchange to challenge dictatorships. The Chilean artist and poet Guillermo Deisler highlighted abuses committed by Pinochet’s regime in his mail art. First imprisoned following the coup, Deisler sent postcard-sized artworks such as <a href="http://www.lomholtmailartarchive.dk/networkers/guillermo-deisler/1985-01-10-deisler"><em>Aktion por Chile y America Latina</em></a> in 1985 from his exile in East Germany. </p>
<p>Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles’s Insertions into Ideological Circuits in the 1970s involved stamping <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/meireles-insertions-into-ideological-circuits-2-banknote-project-t12512">banknotes</a> with demands for answers regarding political killings by the state. He also used recycled <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate/perspectives/cildo-meireles">Coca Cola bottles</a> to insert subversive messages into public circulation.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YgxwmgdWa0U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Forced to flee to Brazil in 1976 after political persecution, Argentine artist León Ferrari collected newspaper clippings related to disappearances, detentions and the discovery of mutilated bodies during the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983). Ferrari received more in the mail and compiled these into <a href="https://www.macba.cat/en/nosotros-no-sabiamos-3265"><em>Nosotros no sabíamos</em></a> (We Didn’t Know, 1976) – a folio challenging Argentine society’s silence on the dictatorship’s brutality. </p>
<p>It was dangerous to make and receive mail art in Latin America. Like many others, <a href="https://post.at.moma.org/content_items/1273-the-unhappy-ambiguity-of-clemente-padin-politics-and-polysemy-in-latin-american-mail-art">Clemente Padín in Uruguay was imprisoned</a>in 1977 and Argentinian mail artist Edgardo A. Vigo’s son was <a href="https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2014/vigo/#:%7E:targetText=Vigo%20was%20active%20during%20the,%E2%80%9Cdisappeared%E2%80%9D%20his%20son%20Palomo.">“disappeared” during the dictatorship</a>. </p>
<p>Deisler, Meireles, Ferrari, Padín, Vigo and others faced down these risks to use existing communication systems to denounce injustice, subvert censorship and traditional circuits of exchange. This legacy of art which challenged dominant political slogans is used by collage artists in Chile today.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chile-protests-escalate-as-widespread-dissatisfaction-shakes-foundations-of-countrys-economic-success-story-125628">Chile protests escalate as widespread dissatisfaction shakes foundations of country's economic success story</a>
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<p>In the digital era, the internet has become the primary means to challenge mainstream media. While undeniably it is used to share information of dubious origin, social media is a powerful information exchange circuit. Online media reach audiences unthinkable in the age of broadcast and postal circulation. </p>
<p>By reminding viewers of the recent past and documenting current injustices, the images shared through platforms such as Collage Chile become the new digital insertions into ideological circuits. And, in this they are continuing a legacy of socially engaged art practices in Latin America. </p>
<p>Current collage art, as shown on Collage Chile’s platform, builds on a tradition of practice in Latin America that challenges abuses of power and social inequality. From the generation of artists who were killed and had to leave their countries due to dictatorships, a new generation has emerged who insist that the past’s abuses should never be repeated. This generation have the ability to share their work globally through social media and form new online communities of resistance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sebastian Bustamante-Brauning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Chilean art activists are using social media to expose abuses and, in doing so, they’re engaging in the legacy of Latin American mail artSebastian Bustamante-Brauning, Doctor of Philosophy Student, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/497982015-10-27T01:51:10Z2015-10-27T01:51:10ZThe building blocks of dissidence: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and #Legogate<p>In case you missed it, Danish company Lego <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/25/ai-weiwei-swamped-by-lego-donation-offers-after-ban-on-use-for-political-artwork">made headlines</a> over the weekend when it refused a bulk order from famed Chinese contemporary artist, architect and human rights activist <a href="http://aiweiwei.com/">Ai Weiwei</a>. </p>
<p>The much-loved children’s building blocks were to be used in an artwork for our own <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/andy-warhol-ai-wei-wei/">National Gallery of Victoria</a>. </p>
<p>Ai responded via Instagram <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/25/artist-ai-weiwei-accept-offers-lego-around-world">on Sunday</a> that Lego’s refusal to sell him the materials, or to approve the use of Legos for “political works” is “an act of censorship and discrimination”. </p>
<p>In response, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/26/451925443/fans-flood-artist-ai-weiwei-with-offers-of-legos">social media went viral</a> via hashtag #legosforweiwei with a global call for donations of Lego blocks and a letter-writing campaign against the company’s decision. </p>
<p>Lego claims that because it is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>dedicated to delivering great creative play experiences to children, (it) refrain(s), on a global level, from actively engaging in or endorsing the use of Lego bricks in projects or contexts of a political agenda.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But critics have been quick to set Lego’s decision against a broader backdrop of Chinese politics. As US communication scholar Professor Craig Gingrich-Philbrook writes on social media:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One presumes Lego would prefer to have children use their toys in safe schools, rather than those built by corrupt interests and that collapse around the children in an earthquake.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Art, activism and the special case of Ai Wei Wei</h2>
<p>Many arts critics have (only half-jokingly) claimed that if Ai Wei Wei didn’t exist, someone might need to invent him. Writing in the <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/is-ai-weiwei-chinas-most-dangerous-man-17989316/?no-ist">Smithsonian in 2012</a>, Mark Stevens argues: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Having spent his formative years as an artist in New York in the 1980s, when Warhol was a god and conceptual and performance art were dominant, (Ai) knows how to combine his life and art into a daring and politically charged performance that helps define how we see modern China… (a country that may well) become the most powerful nation in the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99754/original/image-20151026-18431-u835h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99754/original/image-20151026-18431-u835h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99754/original/image-20151026-18431-u835h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99754/original/image-20151026-18431-u835h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99754/original/image-20151026-18431-u835h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99754/original/image-20151026-18431-u835h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99754/original/image-20151026-18431-u835h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99754/original/image-20151026-18431-u835h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s installation titled Sacred at London’s Royal Academy of Arts in London, September 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://one.aap.com.au/#/search/ai%20wei%20wei">AAP One</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Ensuring he is constantly in international headlines, the Chinese government has actively pursued not only the artist himself, but <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/13/us-china-artist-idUSTRE79C1BZ20111013">supporters</a> of their most famous dissident. </p>
<p>In 2011 when Ai was released from house arrest, UK-based contemporary art magazine ArtReview named him the <a href="http://artreview.com/power_100/ai_weiwei/">artworld’s most powerful artist</a> and was immediately <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/10/13/141325325/artreview-names-chinas-ai-weiwei-most-powerful-person-in-the-art-world">slammed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry</a>. ArtReview countered that the award was not political, but <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/dissident-artist-ai-weiwei-named-most-powerful-art-figure-irking-china/article2199711/">they continued to be scolded by the Chinese government</a>. So far, China has made no official word on the Lego scandal, but events are unfolding.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Ai included in an Instagram post excerpts of an email sent by Lego representatives to the National Gallery of Victoria’s curatorial team saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>any work using the pieces could not contain any political, religious, racist, obscene or defaming statements.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Social media responded, however, with images and commentary of previous examples of where Legos have been used in just that way. Some users have taken to creative responses, linking art and social media just as Ai does in his protests, sparking not only an online/offline outcry, but a creative one at that.</p>
<h2>Online/offline dissidence</h2>
<p>Ai Weiwei’s artworks have become increasingly outspoken over time. As <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/24/ai-weiwei-alcatraz-lego-extraordinary">noted in The Guardian</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Since 2008, and the massive Sichuan earthquake that radicalised his artistic practice, his art and activism have become indissolubly joined into a single enterprise, ambitious, open-hearted, and indispensable in an art world more than happy to look the other way at abuses in China and everywhere else… (It is as though) Ai has given up on metaphor. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>His 2014 exhibition <a href="http://www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz/">(@Large) at San Francisco’s former Alcatraz prison</a> represents both his turn to Lego which is currently at issue, and his increasing radicalisation over the past few years, including directly addressing the plight of political dissidents like Edward Snowden and others.</p>
<p>But Ai’s dissident status was confirmed when he was arrested in 2011 and held for nearly three months without formal charge. After his release, he has until last July <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33617181">remained confined to Beijing</a>. The outpouring of support from around the world in response to his arrest and then severely limited speech and creative expression was overwhelming. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99755/original/image-20151026-18424-2qzk9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99755/original/image-20151026-18424-2qzk9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99755/original/image-20151026-18424-2qzk9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99755/original/image-20151026-18424-2qzk9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99755/original/image-20151026-18424-2qzk9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99755/original/image-20151026-18424-2qzk9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99755/original/image-20151026-18424-2qzk9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99755/original/image-20151026-18424-2qzk9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man signs a signature call for release of Chinese artist activist Ai Wei-wei in Hong Kong in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://one.aap.com.au/#/search/ai%20wei%20wei?q=%7B%22pageSize%22:25,%22pageNumber%22:2%7D">AAP One</a></span>
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<p>Since then, his political artmaking, activism and global following has intensified. He is the subject two documentary films: <a href="http://www.aiweiweineversorry.com/">Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry</a> (2012), and <a href="http://thefakecase.com/">Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case</a> (2013). He is the recipient of the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304203604577396372334739162">2012 Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent</a> from the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, and in May 2015 the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/03/joan-baez-and-ai-weiwei-to-receive-top-award/">Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award in Berlin</a>, which he could not accept personally as he was then still under house arrest and unable to leave China. </p>
<h2>Social media as creativity-without-borders</h2>
<p>Between 2005-2009, Ai was an avid blogger and social critic of his government, before his blogging activities were finally shut down. He remains active on Twitter (@aiww) and Instagram (#aiweiwei). </p>
<p>His artworks reference the social media that permeate our lives, but also which allows his work to continue and proliferate across the globe despite any physical constraints that may be exerted against him.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/24/ai-weiwei-alcatraz-lego-extraordinary">review in The Guardian</a> of the @Large exhibition describes a Chinese paper dragon: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>bears his teeth, but he’s harmless: his eyes are in the shape of the logo of Twitter, native to San Francisco and banned in the People’s Republic. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99764/original/image-20151027-18426-17ogkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99764/original/image-20151027-18426-17ogkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99764/original/image-20151027-18426-17ogkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99764/original/image-20151027-18426-17ogkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99764/original/image-20151027-18426-17ogkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99764/original/image-20151027-18426-17ogkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99764/original/image-20151027-18426-17ogkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99764/original/image-20151027-18426-17ogkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ai Weiwei uses his mobile phone during the unveiling of his new sculpture Forever outside the Gherkin building in London, September 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://one.aap.com.au/#/search/ai%20wei%20wei">AAP One</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ai increasingly <a href="http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-08-16/ai-weiwei">uses digital media as an artform</a> itself, including in 2012, when he installed webcams in his residence and streamed video of himself around the clock. After it was quickly shut down by authorities, Ai retorted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Globalization has linked China’s fate to other countries. We need creativity to compete, and we can’t have creativity without freedom. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ai’s internet broadcast of his 2008 clash with authorities following the earthquake raised his local activities to global levels. After this week’s outpouring of anti-Lego support, Ai <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/26/ai-weiwei-internet-modern-church-lego-bricks">claims</a> that the internet is like “a modern church”, and that his home</p>
<blockquote>
<p>is on the internet. Twitter is my home and my nation and I feel very comfortable there. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The constantly evolving nature of arts activism</h2>
<p>If nothing else, Ai Wei Wei’s growing superstardom speaks to the constantly evolving nature of arts and digital activism, the ability of individuals to rally immediate and global support through social media platforms, and subvert traditional modes of censorship. He is simultaneously showing how creative activism and digital media can productively transcend not only national borders, but creative ones as well. </p>
<p><br>
<em>Readers who would like to write their own letters to Lego can do so <a href="https://wwwsecure.us.lego.com/en-us/service">here</a>. To donate Lego blocks and follow Ai Weiwei on Twitter: #aiweiwei and on Instagram: @aiww</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Harris receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>What makes Ai Wei Wei so powerful? Critics say if he didn’t exist, he’d need to be invented: an artist who’s combined his life and art into a politically charged performance that helps define how we see modern China.Daniel X. Harris, Senior Lecturer, Creative Arts Education, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/461852015-08-19T20:23:21Z2015-08-19T20:23:21ZArt, activism and our creative future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92021/original/image-20150817-5110-9xes6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">American rapper Tyler the Creator cancelled his Australian tour following a campaign by feminist grassroots activist group Collective Shout.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pemberton Music Festival/ Mark C Austin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>American rapper <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler,_The_Creator">Tyler the Creator</a> (full name Tyler Gregory Okonma) made <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-10/tyler-the-creators-australian-tour-cancelled/6685912">headlines last week</a> when he cancelled what was to be his upcoming Australian tour. He did so due to a campaign by the feminist grassroots activist group <a href="http://www.collectiveshout.org/">Collective Shout</a>, who sought to block the rapper’s visit due to his <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/tyler-the-creators-australian-tour-derailed-by-feminist-activist-group-20150810-givwte.html">sexually violent lyrics about women</a> (note: while the rapper cancelled his Australian visit without intervention by Australian immigration, he was banned by New Zealand immigration in January 2014). </p>
<p>The intersection of arts and activism is not new, but social activist movements using digital media to cross between online/ offline worlds are changing the way it gets done. This burgeoning field of “creative activism” also raises the question of whether, rather than democratising social relations, the internet is offering a dangerously anonymous new landscape for nurturing further inequality. </p>
<p>The campaign against Tyler the Creator didn’t play out nicely. The director of Collective Shout received death threats from the rapper’s fans and online commentary was vicious and abusive. Such backlash typifies the power of contemporary tech-savvy arts activism and highlights both the advantages and disadvantages of online/ offline worlds crossing and colliding. </p>
<p>While some similar campaigns have been less successful, and some may argue that the Eastern European feminist juggernaut <a href="http://femen.org/?attempt=1">Femen</a> has been doing it better on a global scale since 2008, Collective Shout also cleverly used social media to publicise the death threats that were received as part of the campaign. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92030/original/image-20150817-5085-zt4ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92030/original/image-20150817-5085-zt4ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92030/original/image-20150817-5085-zt4ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92030/original/image-20150817-5085-zt4ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92030/original/image-20150817-5085-zt4ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92030/original/image-20150817-5085-zt4ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92030/original/image-20150817-5085-zt4ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92030/original/image-20150817-5085-zt4ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Femen activists hold a happening in Hénin-Beaumont, northern France, on March 29, 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/NEWZULU/Aurelien Morissard</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As one Facebook user commented: “Violent rape fantasy is not art.” Definitions of art aside, what is clear is that hybrid activism – whether protesting against or incorporating creative expression – is gaining momentum.</p>
<p>Some choose to call this new hybrid approach “creative activism”, while others use “arts” and “artistic” activism interchangeably with creativity, including the New York School for <a href="http://artisticactivism.org/caa-training-programs/school-of-creative-activism/">Creative Activism</a> and Brooklyn-based <a href="http://www.creativeresistance.org/peoples-puppets/">Creative Resistance</a>. </p>
<p>In Australia, the <a href="http://thecreativeactivists.com.au">Creative Activists website</a> seeks to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>develop events, exhibitions and other creative projects that deliver a triple bottom line benefit by offering a creative outlet that benefits artists, businesses and charities or causes in need.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>[Alex Kelly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Kelly_(filmmaker) is one Australian artist-activist who uses arts and social media to push for social change. When not working for Naomi Klein’s New York-based climate-change non-profit organisation <a href="http://thischangeseverything.org">This Changes Everything</a>, or spearheading <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-30/fracking-funding-concerns-for-nt-festivals/6657696">anti-fracking initiatives in Alice Springs</a>, where she lives, Kelly gives speeches like the one she made recently at the <a href="http://www.moregoldcoast.com.au/2970-degrees-arts-innovation/">Australian 2970 Degrees summit</a> titled <a href="http://greenagenda.org.au/2015/08/art-and-activism/">Radically Re-Imagining the World as Climate Changes</a>. </p>
<p>But millenial activists such as Kelly work with both large and small-scale strategies to raise consciousness and create change on a global scale. In her 2970 Degree summit speech, Kelly calls for fear to be replaced by: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>work that triggers conversations, that makes us think about other possibilities – ideas beyond capitalism, beyond closing our borders, towards a more inclusive, more just, wiser and more creative world. A world that we can all see ourselves in and that we are excited to engage to fight for. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her contemporaries, such as <a href="http://www.michaelpremo.com/">Michael Premo</a> of New York’s <a href="http://occupysandy.net%20movement">Occupy Sandy</a> (after Hurricaine Sandy in 2012) and also <a href="http://housingisahumanright.org">Housing is a Human Right</a> (an arts-informed housing activist organisation that has had large-scale impact on mortgage buy-backs after the 2008 global financial crisis), believe that total structural change in the western world is not an impossibility, and art is the way to do it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92029/original/image-20150817-5127-qvykx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92029/original/image-20150817-5127-qvykx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92029/original/image-20150817-5127-qvykx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92029/original/image-20150817-5127-qvykx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92029/original/image-20150817-5127-qvykx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92029/original/image-20150817-5127-qvykx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92029/original/image-20150817-5127-qvykx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92029/original/image-20150817-5127-qvykx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Occupy Sandy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Not An Alternative</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Kelly told me recently as part of a current study on arts and activism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some people think of art in activism as the cake decorators that just come in make everything look good, and then other people have deep understanding of what is a cultural strategy. And it’s not just about the art as objects or as banners, or as pieces that decorate the cake, but about this really deep embodiment of ideas in a poetic way, which can transfer ideas more deeply than just straight information.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As I’ve written elsewhere, including <a href="http://theconversation.com/creative-communities-embody-a-new-kind-of-civic-engagement-37114">here on The Conversation</a>, the <a href="http://peoplespuppets.org/">Peoples’ Puppets of Occupy Wall Street</a> is at the vanguard of this kind of work. They continue to meet the needs of those concerned with pressing issues such as climate, race, gender and fair wages. </p>
<p>Most recently, they protested for an <a href="http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150723/BLOGS01/150729914/perfect-storm-led-to-fast-food-wage-hike">increase in wages for fast food workers</a> – and won. They are explicit that <a href="http://www.alternet.org/activism/we-need-art-our-activism">artful approaches are able to accomplish</a> what other strategies cannot, by touching hearts, not just minds.</p>
<p>Yet new forms of gendered and political conflict, such as that which confronted Tyler the Creator, are appearing online at an accelerating rate, and some feel that the internet, rather than democratising social relations, is only offering a dangerously anonymous new landscape for creating further injustice and inequality. </p>
<p>DIY and maker-cultures, new virtual landscapes and embodiments, and multi-sensory digital communities can be a doorway toward that “more inclusive, more just, wiser and more creative world” that Alex Kelly and her next wave urge us to consider, if we continue to combine real-world action with the power of digital networking. </p>
<p>The choice is ours: will we get mired in online fear-mongering, bullying and life-threatening trolling, or rise to creative online/ offline worlds we can yet only imagine?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel X. Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Arts activism isn’t new, but online activist movements are changing the way it gets done. In this anonymous virtual landscape, does activism democratise social relations, or nurture inequality?Daniel X. Harris, Senior Lecturer, Creative Arts Education, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.