As the inventor of the escopetarra– rifles transformed into guitars–Cesar Lopez breathes life into instruments of death. In response to the violence that has plagued his home in Bogota, Colombia, Lopez has discovered a way to channelthis violence into “art, where creation triumphs over destruction.” He has received wide acclaim for this, as well as his involvement with The Battalion of Immediate Artistic Action — a kind of emergency first-response unit of musicians and activists who take to the streets every time there is some kind of guerilla attack in Bogota to assuage the victims of political violence with soothing music.

You can visit his website to find out more: http://www.cesarlopez.org/ 

In a world where the “War on Terror” is mostly a product buzzphrase sold on supermarket shelves and across the global airwaves adjacent to detergent and oatmeal, there certainly are terrorists.  They come in a diverse array of shapes, sizes, colors and if you pull their strings you will hear them speak in all manner of tongue and carry as many flags as exist in the world today.  Of course there are angry, impressionable young people that fit the “accepted” terrorist profile and there is also a person that thinks that having some comic book heros that speak to these kids will have a positive counter-effect to the draw of violent resistance…certainly a better approach than blowing someones country into the stone-age (accomplishing nothing but endless pain and justifiable anger).  Resistance to violence in all its forms is a commendable task so this approach certainly seems worth a shot.

Check out this article in NewsWeek

For three centuries African slaves were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, 42% of whom found themselves in Brazil.  They arrived with their cultural traditions and religious beliefs…and the addition of Brazil into their rich heritage gave birth to the dance based martial art that is capoeira.

Most Brazilian scholars have argued that capoeira was developed by slaves, needing a way to conceal the fighting style they were inventing for potential resistance to their owners.  They chose to hide their emerging martial art in an intricate set of moves designed to appear for all intents and purposes as an artistic dance routine.  Because it appeared they were just dancing, they were able to develop their fighting style without suspicion.  After the abolition of slavery in 1888, the freed slaves took capoeira with them into the cities, where it became associated with anti-government activities and was eventually eventually outlawed.  Practitioners who were caught doing capoeira were often subjected to extreme punishment, including the severing of tendons on the back of the feet, to keep them from doing it.  It continued its popularity in underground circles and gave rise to an entire hidden culture, where capoeiristas were given nicknames to make it more difficult for the police to find them.   Since capoeira matches were practiced to a musical rhythm (in keeping with the development of the martial art as dance) special rhythms were created to alert people practicing and watching matches that the police were coming.  In 1937, capoeira was performed before the president of Brazil, who was so impressed with the discipline and devotion of its practitioners that he declared it the national sport of Brazil. 



While developed as a fighting style originally, a modern capoeira “fight” is more akin to a pretend cockfight, showing off skills rather than attempting to harm an opponent.  In fact one of the speculations about the origin of sport’s name is that the Portuguese word “capoiera” derives from the wrod cap
ao, which translates as capon, a castrated rooster.  The name may originate from this word since its moves resemble those of a rooster in a fight.  Thus, articipants are reminded by the word capoeira that the intent of their actions should mimic the restraint of the show-off, yet castrated rooster called capao.  The fights are essentially mock skill displays and one-upmanship where the winner is the one with the best moves, not the deadliest blows.Definitely another take on the ‘art of resistance’

 

According to an anonymous letter sent to The Detroiter, the “D” (shortened nickname for Detroit) doesn’t really stand for “Detroit,” but “Demolition”.  Detroit has become one of the most recognizable symbols of urban decline in the country, and with that decline has come one of the most unintendedly recognizable symbols of the city of Detroit – its omnipresent derelict buildings.  Once a building was slated for demolition a “D” would be written on the facade and presumably the building would be demolished.  However, in many cases, instead the buildings continued to stand indefinitely serving as a stark reminder of the overall trajectory of the city. In fact, out of Detroit’s more than 7,000 abandoned buildings, fewer than 2,000 are officially slated for demolition, leaving a long list of properties that have become drug dens, prostitution centers and dangerous neighborhood playgrounds.

 In response, a group of activists hatched a creative plan to draw attention to the city’s neglect.  The artistic move is simple. Cover the front in Tigeriffic Orange - a color from the Mickey Mouse series of paints, easily purchased from Home Depot. Every  board, every door, every window is caked in the bright orange day-glo paint.  The response has been a near immediate initiative by the city to tear them down – these buildings that had stood, unpainted and undemolished for so long.  So with that some questions arise. Where do the city’s motivations lie? Do they want to stop drawing attention to these houses? Are the demolition crews simply confused, believing that the garish orange facades are the city’s new mark for demolition? Or is it a genuine response to beautify the city?

In any case, what will be the social ramification of this project?  Each of the painted houses serves a purpose within the greater visual and social landscape of the city.  If the city doesn’t rebuild, is it better to have nothing there rather than an abandoned house? In addition, each of these houses served as shelter for the homeless at some point.  If the city truely didn’t care to remove the buildings from the landscape, could it have allowed their renovation, providing housing and creating a safer environment for hundreds of families otherwise forced to live in the streets?

While the activist response to these buildings may be local, there are larger implications evoked by the symbolism.  In a country who’s leadership never misses a chance to announce its pole position in the world, how is it that an entire city could be left behind so visibly.  The money, now some $12 billion a month, being spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could help the city of Detroit and many others find a way back from their current state, provide education, healthcare and municipal services that make a difference in people’s lives and strengthen their chances for a solid future.

The Detroit artists responsible for these day-glo orange buildings have a message: “These buildings aren’t scenery. You can get involved and make a difference. Take action. Pick up a roller. Pick up a brush. Apply orange.”  This leads to a broader metaphorical question about finding new ways to call attention to the neglect of those in control–more keen to wage wars for power, resource control and crony enrichment than figuring out how to lift up those left behind in their own backyard.  This is the question I have: what else can we paint?  

Best known for his illustration work in the New Yorker and numerous other outlets, Eric Drooker also has a large body of incredible activist work.  Throughout his career as an illustrator he has developed a unique graphic style often seen in street posters that have been used throughout the world to represent the human struggle as it appears to the rest of us.

Postering, as a medium, has been extensively employed throughout the history of resistance much in the same fashion as graffiti. Often in times of political and economic turmoil it is common in urban settings to see a dramatic uptick in the presence of posters showing literal or metaphorical depictions of resistance against power and its misuse.

His work really says it better than I could so visit his site to see more of this incredible collection of work by the one and only Eric Drooker.

Click here to visit Eric Drooker’s website 

A look at America’s struggles with war, class, race and women’s rights. based on Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and featuring some of today’s most sought after acting talent. The People Speak is slated for release in September 2008.

More footage can be found by clicking here.

Visit www.howardzinn.org to find out more. 

According to Wikipedia:
The Church of Stop Shopping is an activist performance group based in New York City, led by Reverend Billy, the stage name of Bill Talen. Using the form of a revival meeting, on sidewalks and in chain stores, Reverend Billy and his gospel choir exhort consumers to abandon the products of large corporations and mass media; the group also preaches a broader message of economic justice, environmental protection, and anti-militarism, protesting sweatshops and the Iraq War.

While that is a good description, to witness this in person is something else altogether. The Reverend and his choir have a habit of showing up at the local Starbucks unannounced for what I guess you could call an exorcism (Jesus release the demons from this cash register). The ensuing meelee often could most accurately be described as ‘bananas’ — as the situation devolves into rapturous preaching in the midst of thoroughly confused coffeeshop patronage, then further into confrontation with a batallion of thoroughly unamused police. In the end though, it feels less like you’ve been preached to than entertained in a way and what you take away is a memory not just of the spectacle but the content of the message.

A little background:
Bill Talen was a Dutch Calvinist Minnesota-born actor who moved to New York from San Francisco in the late 1990s, where he had originally created a character that was a hybrid of street preacher and televangelist called Reverend Billy. This character was performed in various San Francisco alternative theater venues, where Talen had earned a considerable reputation as both a performer and a producer (Life On The Water theater, the Solo Mio Festival, Writers Who Act, etc.). In New York, Talen began appearing as Reverend Billy on street corners in Times Square, near the recently opened Disney Store. Times Square had recently begun its transformation from a seedy but lively center of small-time and sometimes illicit commerce—and also of New York theatre—to a more gentrified and tourist-friendly venue for large companies like Disney and big-budget stage productions like The Lion King. Whereas other street preachers chose Times Square because of its reputation for sin, Reverend Billy’s sermons focused on the evils of consumerism and advertising—represented especially by Disney and Mickey Mouse—and on what Talen saw as the loss of neighborhood spirit and cultural authenticity in Rudolph Giuliani’s New York.

Talen’s chief collaborator in developing the Reverend Billy character was the Reverend Sidney Lanier. A cousin of Tennessee Williams with an interest in avant-garde theater, Lanier was then the vicar of St. Clement’s, an Episcopal church in Hell’s Kitchen that doubled as a theatrical space, where Talen was working as house manager. Lanier encouraged Talen, who was suspicious of religious figures after rejecting the conservative Protestantism of his youth, to study radical theologians and performers; of these, Talen credits Elaine Pagels and Lenny Bruce as particularly strong influences. Though Talen does not call himself a Christian, he says that Reverend Billy is not a parody of a preacher, but a real preacher; he describes his church’s spiritual message as “put the Odd back in God.”

While Reverend Billy commonly operates his ministry on the streets and in the chain stores of New York City, he travels and is known worldwide. Years of preaching the gospel of stop shopping has led him develop an entirely unique, effective and often hilarious method of teaching through ‘preaching’ about the dangers of rampant corporatism and consumerism…and how they connect with population exploitation, the environment, militarism and you. So if you’re out shopping and a strange looking preacher happens into your store to exorcise the demons from the cash register, don’t leave, check it out! He’s got a point.

Visit Reverend Billy’s official website

Berlin Wall - Berlin, Germany. Circa 1989

One of the most basic forms of artistic political expression may be that of graffiti. Simply put, all you need to be is one person with a can of spraypaint, a resonant message and the guts to put it out in public at the right location. Of course, grafitti as an expressive artform has its adherents and detractors and the artistic merit of grafitti on the whole is in constant debate. In situations, though, when there is no other way to get a point across it has been used with poignant brilliance to shine a light on subjects that may have never been exposed. Consider the western side of the Berlin Wall–famously covered with endless graffiti celebrating the vibrance of life on that side of the wall–or the murals now blooming (at considerable personal risk to their creators) on the Palestinian side of the so-called Israeli Separation Barrier highlighting a drastically different celebration - the determined persistance through art of a culture living under crushing daily oppression vibrantly displayed on its most visible symbol. Or consider the often humorous, and often astute, political commentary sprinkled throughout london by clever stencil graf artists like Banksy. Throughout this blog, grafitti will be a common thread because it has been used so often as a sort of ‘editorial column of the street’ by those who lack the resources, funding or political connections to sway the media to their arguments, and it’s often used just as effectively as any editorial column in a magazine or newspaper. It is true that when noone will listen, sometimes the only way to change the law is to break it. Speak up when you’re told to sit down. Write it on a wall.

Banksy – Israeli Separation Barrier, Palestine
Banksy did a number of pieces on the wall, many of which can be seen here.

Alberto Aragon Reyes, Gustavo Chavez Pavon and Erasto Molina Urbina – Israeli Separation Barrier, Palestine
More of their paintings can be found at Electronic Intifada.

Artist unknown – Israeli Separation Barrier, Palestine

Let’s start with something that came to my attention a few years ago when a group of older women I knew told me that they were going to go the next day to sign up for basic training. They went down to the local recruiting station and demanded to be allowed to enlist, occupying the place until being arrested en masse. This is a tactic the Raging Grannies have been using since the first gulf war in the early 1990s often to entertaining, but more importantly poignant, effect. According to their website the Grannies got their start in 1987 in Victoria, B.C., Canada in an effort to “increase their effectiveness and impact.” They now have chapters throughout Canada and the United States as well as Israel, Japan, Greece and the United Kingdom. Since their inception they’ve become a prominent fixture on the antiwar and environmental activist scenes.

Check out their website to find out more

People are always asking the question “but what can I do?” when confronted with a realization that action must be taken against something they find intolorable. Some go to protests. Some attend meetings. Some go on hunger strikes. Some do nothing. Often the burnout of facing off against an entity with the appearance of being so powerful and inpenetrable just causes most to give up, continuing to ask that question. However, there is another way. Activism and resistance should be a fun, creative and resilient experience—a puzzle to be attacked with vigor and excitement at the possibilities that lie beyond the end of the oppression that breeds your activism in the first place. This blog will be an attempt to open a window to the efforts of some of the countless many who have chosen to take this approach. Also, to give you ideas and how-to tips, fodder for your own creative assault! Our hope is that seeing that the fight can be fun, and through the potential joy and creativity of resistance that the fight can be won, we can do our part in inspiring you to get involved.