MOSCOW — Yesterday, members of the Russian artist collective VOINA were arrested without charges by Russian police posing as German television journalists. Natalia Sokol and her two-year old son were detained overnight at a Moscow police station and later released. The same night, plainclothes agents tried to break into VOINA member Leonid Nikolayev’s apartment and interrogated his neighbours.
The harassment comes only weeks after all criminal charges against the group were dropped by an Investigations Committee. Last November, VOINA members Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolayev were arrested in connection with an art -performance that involved overturning a police car. They were held for three months and released after grafftti artist Banksy paid their bail. According to the Committee’s decision, the group’s actions “do not contain signs of crimes governed by Article 213 [motivated by hatred of a specific social group]” because the police do not constitute a social group.
And here are some artfully assembled videos from ‘occupy’ movements in Canada. Enjoy these, too. More media, testimony, photos and coverage can be found at the Media Coop.
It’s the site of what is arguably Vancouver’s most notable event, a bitter battle between the Non-Partisan Association and an alliance of Strathcona activists and Chinatown business people – the Georgia Street Viaduct. Built as a first phase of a planned interurban freeway system, this minute stretch of freeway reaches like a tree root from the downtown core to Chinatown a now-gone neighbourhood of Vancouver known as “Hogan’s Alley” and home to the city’s only black church, the African Methodist Episcopal Fountain Chapel.
On the one hand, the viaduct is considered the single most ‘convenient’ way out of downtown. On the other, a complete waste of incredibly valuable space. It’s an unwanted shrine to a battle that kept the freeway from being built through downtown, allowing the city to become what it is today.
The City of Vancouver has decided it’s time for this shrine to go – though when and how and what will go there is yet to be determined.
Skattered throughout Vancouver, bus stop shelters have been turned from ad space to sheet music. Adorno and Nose, as the piece is called, is a collection of ten songs composed and illustrated by Barry Doupe and James Whitman. Each poster contains a different song, notated as standard sheet music, the verse, and a drawn graphic.
“The songs are invitations to play and divertissement, whether private, humming or singing to oneself, or performance, singing out loud to friends or strangers. …People will be surprised, will wonder what they’re for,” explain the artists of the work.
Going nude on Wall Street may be more risky than insider trading.
Three artists were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct Monday for participating in a site-specific performance designed to protest US and international financial institutions.
Entitled Ocularpation: Wall Street, the five-minute performance was organized by Manhattan artist Zefrey Throwell and included dozens of volunteers acting out various Wall Street occupations before shedding their clothes.
“The idea, Mr. Throwell said, was to expose the realities of working on the nation’s financial artery as a commentary on the state of the economy, though most passers-by simply saw flesh.” (ArtsBeat)
Approached by the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe to produce a public work for their event, South African designer Heath Nash built shade structures using scrap materials — largely discarded beverage containers.
‘Pakour’, or FreeRunning, is the acrobatic art of running through cities and overcoming obstacles on the fly — or like a fly, because sometimes it seems like traceurs (slang for those who practice pakour) can defy gravity. It is thrilling to watch, and no doubt even more thrilling to do.
I just discovered this great short doc (Free Running Gaza) by the folks who make the Artscape program at Al Jazeera about two young men in Gaza who have been practicing pakour since 2009 and posting videos of their acrobatic feats on Youtube.
It is, of course, about the art of pakour for these occupants of Kan Younis refugee camp, and about survival and inspiration. Check it out.
The fine folks from Making Contact (a program at the National Radio Project) present Marching for Change: Street Bands in the US, a new documentary about the musical funsters who make protests danceable.
Social justice marching bands have emerged in recent decades as essential contributors to North American protest movements filling streets of unrest with their fun beats and good vibes.
This new documentary includes appearances by such luminaries as the Hungry March Band, Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Infernal Noise Brigade, and the Brass Liberation Orchestra.
An audaciously proactive guerrilla group has, just recently, conducted an early morning raid on ubiquitous advertising encasements at bus stops, metro stations and other locations throughout Montreal – replacing corporate adverts with art and political posters. They have put together a site complete with an interactive map where the locations of each intervention are highlighted with text and photos. The action is nothing short of heroic, brilliant and inspirational. Below is their blurb, from their website. Kudos to Artung!
Contributors
Stefan Christoff, Colin Horgan, Julia Pyper
Michelle Siobhan Reid, Valerie Cardinal, Race Capet
Laurence Miall, Terry Fairman, Tyler Morgenstern
MOSCOW — Yesterday, members of the Russian artist collective VOINA were arrested without charges by Russian police posing as German television journalists. Natalia Sokol and her two-year old son were detained overnight at a Moscow police station and later released. The same night, plainclothes agents tried to break into VOINA member Leonid Nikolayev’s apartment and interrogated his neighbours.
‘Pakour’, or FreeRunning, is the acrobatic art of running through cities and overcoming obstacles on the fly — or like a fly, because sometimes it seems like traceurs (slang for those who practice pakour) can defy gravity. It is thrilling to watch, and no doubt even more thrilling to do.
