memorial

A sea of flowers, with some text and a few photos… Who doesn’t automatically get a feeling of solemn regard? Guerrilla memorial sites perhaps are one of the most powerful, yet macabre, actions in public space.

Through WoosterCollective, this London action commenting capitalism’s crisis is quite nice:

See more of this on Flickr. It reminds me of the works of Jonas Staal, who put up memorial sites of some right-wing populist politician.

guerilla polar bear

Users of a round-about in The Netherlands suddenly witnessed a giant polar bear just about to throw an oil drum. The polar bear, weighing 5000 kilos and made of old car tires, has been put there secretly in the night by action group Acting Forward by the help of a construction company.

“The ice bear has come here since its natural habitat is disappearing,” says Abel Heijkamp. The negative consequences of car traffic should be made visible in the public domain. Making reality visible in another context is the best means.”

(Thanks, Alex van Veen from Ravage!)

Adult playground

Via Pixelsumo, Bryan Taylor wonders if children and play are designed out of the public realm: “71% of adults used to play on the streets when they were young”. Have we forgotten what it is to play? To experience accidental fun in urban space?

To open up public space for playing, Bryan hung a swing in a London bus stop. Remarkable that it is most utilized by adults… And not too difficult to put up. Watch:

Miniature banner dropping

Tired of the predictable spectacle of banner dropping? Try this!

Energy company E.ON wants to build a new coal power station, allegedly rendering all efforts for reduction of CO2 emissions ineffective. The British Legoland in Winsor, of which E.ON’s sponsorship has led to a miniature replica of a power station, next to Westminster Abbey and the Big Ben, has been surprised with a visit from creative environmentalists. As in the real world, a big banner saying “Stop climate change!” has been dropped. The activists have prepared their action with lots of detail: Next to the protesters, also a police helicopter and riot cops have been placed. Watch:

Reverse Graffiti

City walls are covered with dust, oil and stains. Some people hate it, others hate hygienic walls even more. In Los Angelos, a graffiti artist NAME is fascinated by the accumulated dirt on the walls. He makes the theme of clean and dirty visible by cleaning the walls, but only where needed. With a pressure washer and wooden stencils, he transforms the sloppy walls into an ecological experience.

Check out this video!

sculpture hacking

Somewhere in New York, this sculpture of Ghandi lives:

After some effort, maybe from judithsupine, who has quite a lot of interesting wheatpasting images on her flickr-gallery, the personalization of peaceful resolution of conflicts becomes:

Wonder how this has been made…

Guerilla Gardening

An empty, neglected piece of land in your neighborhood? Transform it into your own public garden! Guerilla Gardening, is what it’s called. And in the Netherlands, a site has launched where guerilla gardens can be claimed, appointments can be made to make these gardens.

space for contemplation

Alas, my Portoguese is not enough to have a productive research on this one, but… do you need one with seeing these pictures? Great idea for a street performance, issuing the mental state of always being on the move, in the 24-7 rush hour called life. Why wouldn’t you step down, and use a place designed for a rush to take it easy? Watch out, it might be contagious…

Take it easy, From Sao Paolo (thanks Polly Rosa):

superfluous waste

Estimate how much of the stuff you buy you throw away immediately. In weight, that must be somewhere between three and ten percent. Rubbish, produced to be… rubbish. In Gent, an US-style television reverend held his station at a supermarket, preaching the people about the amount of waste that they every day not even consume. Shoppers were ‘asked’ to put their groceries in more sustainable carriers that were brought by the action group. The superfluous waste eventually was returned to the shop. More info (in Dutch) and photo’s here.

Maštamag – The blog for creative activism

Mašta, the magazine for creative activism, just started its blog. Temporarily hosted at WordPress, but sooner or later to be found at www.creativeacts.org. The intention of this blog is to gather an astonishing diversity of actions that are progressive in content, and creative in nature.

I wish you as much fun as I have!