Thursday, April 29, 2010

artivist


artivist: artivista

according to the (longer) English wikipedia definition:
Artivist is a portmanteau word combining "art" and "activist". Artivism developed in recent years while the anti-globalization and antiwar protests emerged and proliferated. In most of the cases artivists attempt to push political agendas by the means of art. Yet this is not political art as it was known before, in the sense of artworks being political. The artivist is often involved in Streetart or Urban Art, Adbusting or Subvertising.

When I went looking for this word in Spanish I found that Kayhan Irani has the fabulous website artivista.org (though she's of Iranian descent, so maybe this word works in Farsi too, but I'm guessing she got it from the Spanish). She also edited the great book, “Telling Stories to Change the World: Global Voices on the Power of Stories to Build Community and make Social Justice Claims”, which I really enjoyed.

The photo here is graffiti in Bogotá.