“The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible.”
– Toni Cade Bambara
ART SPACES
The Artivist Network has organized and supported spaces for the creation of art around mass mobilizations and international climate conferences on five continents. Our open-to-public spaces are laboratories for supporting the development of creative actions and media-stunts, focusing on empowering small and under-funded groups with basic materials and support needed to have bigger impact. We have organized ArtSpaces to support marches and mass mobilizations in New York, Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Washington D.C., Bangkok, Lima,Pengang, Barcelona, Berlin, Kuantan, Santiago, Budapest and many more.
For information on how to organize your own artspace, check out our Artivist Guide and this presentation.
Standing Rock ArtSpace (Spain, 2019)
The Artivist Network organized a permanent artspace at the movement convergence center in central Madrid to support local youth, diaspora and international groups in the context of the COP25 UNFCCC summit in Madrid, Spain. The Artivists Network supported the creation and execution dozens of actions inside the conference center using creative tactics as well as painting the 12 meter illuminated lead banner for the evening-time march, which would become the largest climate march to date. Artivists-in-Residence members carried out a choregoraphed sound-swarm and executed large-scale wheat-paste murals.
Jakarta Jungle House (Indonesia, 2018)
In response to the IPCC’s report urging ‘drastic and unprecedented action’, the Artivist Network ran the JakartaJungleHouse project as part of the COP24 (Poland) Conference program. This was our first construction of a secondary COP (regional) node’ which looked to bring together a mix of people from Indonesia and Malaysia during the COP, to discuss regional solutions and ‘glocal’ thinking. Working with local partners and supporting organisations like 350(SEA), we brought together artists and activists from the region to form a week long CoSchool, ran workshops and creative sessions with the general public and school children, visited an urban garden, and held a 3day exhibition in collaboration with FossilFree Indonesia that included artwork from Singapore’s youth and a rooftop night poetry/sharing closing circle under the Indonesia stars.
Imidir Water Protector Camp (Morocco, 2016)
The Artivist Network visited the permanent indigenous camp in Imidir, Morocco, that had successfully occupied a water pipeline that was illegally stealing water from their community. During an extended visit, we painted a mural with a camp resident and led a stencil workshop that allowed water defenders to paint directly on the water pipeline and water tower they were protesting.
Rondo Artspace (Poland, 2018)
In 2018, the Artivist Network was lent a space directly in front of the UN conference center in Katowice, Poland. It was cold, but we were able to temporarily convert a spacious museum foyer and boutique into a space for mass creation, including light banners, giant inflatable gas pipelines, the enamouring plastic jellyfish of Artivist-in-Residence Angeline Pittinger, and one BIG rapid-response disobedient action pulled off in a matter of hours.
Rhizome ArtSpace (Germany, 2017)
In 2017, the Artivist Network was hosted by the Rhizome Collective at their space in Bonn, Germany to support the creation of activist art, including collaboration between Artivist-in-Residence Angeline Pittinger and members of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development to create large scale puppets of the goddess Kali and an adverserial capitalist.
Jardin d’ Alice (France, 2015)
Along with local art collectives and international networks, the Artivist Network ran a mass art organizing space at Le Jardin d’Alice for over two weeks during the COP21 UN Climate Summit in Paris, France. The highly used space with regular international meetings, an active people’s kitchen, workshops, rehearsals and art-builds to prepare for the D12 mass civil disobedience, Climate Games, as well as actions inside and outside the UN conference center.
YOUNGO ArtSpace (Denmark, 2009)
At the first major UN Climate Summit for a new generation of climate activists, the COP15 summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, members of the Artivist Network worked with YOUNGO to set up an ArtSpace that became the center of the young climate movement at its first major international encounter. Artivists-in-Residence worked with international youth organizers to create the youth bloque in the largest climate mobilization to date. Props included 3 giant fabric boats, a dinosaur puppets, 40 choreographed dancing penguins, and many banners made by national youth coalitions. The ArtSpace also served as a space for the creation of numerous action visuals used inside and outside the COP15 Climate Summit.
Climate Camp Tour (Europe, 2019)
During the summer of 2019, the Artivist Network visited several climate camps and organised many artspaces before demonstrations and mass actions. Tour stops included climate camps in Vienna (Austria), Ende Gelande (Germany), Limity Jsme my (Czech Republic), Camp-in-Gas (Portugal), and the Civil Green Conference, Rebellion Artspace and Global Climate Strike Artspace (Hungary).
Other ArtSpaces include: The Climate Games 2015 (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Earth First Camp (2015, 2016. UK), Rolling Restance Camp (2017, UK), BaseCamp (2018, UK), Maleta Art Space (2019, Chile), Ende Gelande (Germany), TTIP-CETA Game Over (Brussels, Belgium), Bali World Beyond Banks ArtSpace (Bali, Indonesia), Limity Jsme My (Czech Republic), Obódz Dla Klimatu (Poland), Austrian Climate Camp (Austria), COP15 (w/ YOUNGO, Copenhagen), COP16 (w/ YOUNGO, Cancun), COP17 (Durban), COP20 (w/ Tierra Activa, Peru), 8M Woman’s Strike (w/ Arts Can Battlo, Barcelona), Fridays for Future (Barcelona), Fridays for Future (Budapest), Fridays for Future (Malaysia), Powershift Conferences (2007, 2009, 2011. USA) and more…
Want us to help you organize an ArtSpace? Get in touch.
