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Artist Ai Weiwei arrested by Chinese police - China's crackdown on dissidents...
Art blogazine Hyperallergic is liveblogging developments relating to Weiwei’s disappearance. Visit them for the latest news on the situation. Days after announcing his intention to build a new studio...
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Where are the women? - Media conference asks why women are still scarce in...
A large roomful of incredible women converged at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University for two memorable days in October. Leaders of industry, government, and labour sat down with filmmakers,...
View ArticleArts Advocacy Day
Americans for the Arts is holding an “Arts Advocacy Day” this April 4 and 5, and to help you in your advocacy they’ve compiled briefs on many of the issues that arts and arts education will be facing...
View ArticleMissing artist Ai Weiwei on art and social change - Ai Weiwei's presentation...
A few weeks before artist Ai Weiwei disappeared into police custody in Beijing (see link below), he was scheduled to present at a TED Talks Conference. He couldn’t make it, but he had a video...
View ArticleScreen free week - MEF endorses week without screen media with short video
Next week (April 18-24) is Screen-Free Week in countries where screen time has surpassed almost all other forms of social time-spending. We know that most of you are familiar with the criticisms...
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Imagine & Canada’s Conservative nightmare - Yoko Ono pulls Harper's Lennon...
As election campaigning moves into hyperdrive across Canada, politicians from across the political spectrum are pulling media tricks to win coveted votes from coast to coast. Music speaks to the heart...
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Director of Vancouver’s W2 talks art cuts - A conversation with Irwin Oostindie
Irwin Oostindie is Executive Director of W2, a community media and arts space in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Am Johal: W2 is one of the newest arts organizations in the city. It was one of the real...
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$25 million in arts funding still missing - Canada Prizes for the Arts and...
The Conservative government’s 2009 pledge to deliver $25 million in prize money for the arts remains an empty promise. Responding to widespread backlash after making $45 million in cuts to arts and...
View ArticleMyth-busting the Internet: The truth about throttling, congestion and...
A new report challenges claims made by Canada’s largest telecommunication companies in recent disputes over Internet billing and governance. Casting An Open Net: A Leading-Edge Approach to Canada’s...
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Montreal group takes over ad space - Artung Collective replaces ads with art...
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 –...
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Toronto theatre fest gets funding pulled - A conversation with Artistic...
Toronto’s indie theatre festival SummerWorks has recently reported that core funding from Heritage Canada has been pulled at the last minute. Given the ire the festival drew from the government over...
View Article$16.8m in arts funding to BC Arts Council
Last Thursday, July 7, BC’s Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, Ida Chong, announced $16.8 million in funding for the arts, to be administered through the BC Arts Council. This...
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A new generation of threats to online freedom - Report by ONI details 3rd...
Worried about how the Internet is being transformed from a creative playground into a structure for dominance and control? You should be, at least that’s the warning from the OpenNet Initative in their...
View ArticleOccupy Montreal & Toronto — Videos from the Media-Coop - More videos of the...
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.
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Russian artists VOINA detained, harassed - Russian police pose as German...
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...
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Put the Pocahontas back on the rack - Ethnic Halloween costumes challenged by...
A recent article on CBC.ca reports that a campaign is underway to educate people in the US and Canada on the harms brought by “ethnic costumes” worn at Halloween. Costumes that crudely reflect already...
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New Nordic Documentary Cinema - Identity and belonging made visible
A Historically Closed Cinema Pries Open To describe the topic of Nordic documentary cinema as unexplored would be an understatement. Historical and contemporary writing on non-fiction film production,...
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Voina member arrested, whereabouts unknown - Russian art collective faces...
Leonid Nikolaev's arrest, December 4, 2011 Yesterday, founding member of the Russian art collective Voina, Leonid Nikolaev, was abducted by Russian police and his whereabouts are unknown. Nikolaev was...
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Art and inspiration meet on Montreal streets
J. R. Carpenter. Entre Ville. as appeared in Four Minutes to Midnight A text originally published in edition twelve of Four Minutes to Midnight, launched in November at Expozine in Montreal. Ideas...
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What’s the value of an art school? - Contextualizing the crisis at NSCAD
NSCAD's modern new Port campus overlooks Halifax harbour. Photo by Rory Hyde. Celebrating its 125th anniversary next year, The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design is the oldest of Canada’s four...
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Art Threat will go dark for SOPA Strike
SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act being proposed by the US Congress. It is an overbearing, industry sponsored piece of legislation that, in effect, holds internet culture hostage in the name of...
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Is Enbridge using art to greenwash the Northern Gateway?
Enbridge Landscape, an illustration by Harpy. Protests voicing opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines Project are quickly expanding. Public hearings on the controversial tar sands oil...
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Gasland director arrested in Washington - Politicians have acclaimed...
Josh Fox is an American video artist who rose to critical acclaim for his 2010 documentary feature breakthrough, Gasland. The creatively funky, seriously personal, and lively-paced film chronicles...
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Occupy Museums challenges Armory Show - Artists invited to join free art...
New York’s prestigious Armory Show opens on March 8th at Piers 92 & 94. The Armory Show started in 1913, amid the challenges and excitement of early 20th century avant-garde art and artists intent...
View ArticleEducation versus war - Friday Film Pick: War Made Easy
As students wage a massive strike in Quebec, over proposed tuition hikes that will nearly double rates in a few years, and with police responding like violent fascists—blinding the eye of one young...
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Artists invited to join Occupy Arts Committee - 3rd gathering in Montreal set...
Bryant Park, Manhattan. Photo by Eric Walton Montreal artists are invited to join the growing collaboration of the Occupy Arts Committee, a gathering of artists from all disciplines who want to...
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Studios are killing indy film – not downloads - A fantastic Q interview with...
Yesterday’s Q show on CBC Radio One had a great interview with the director of REPO MAN and SID AND NANCY, Alex Cox. An outspoken critic of the studio system and of government and corporate efforts to...
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WWOZ community radio in New Orleans - Fundraising drive for the voice of New...
Tune in, turn on and give a few bucks to one the most fabulous radio stations anywhere. WWOZ New Orleans community radio is having their annual membership fundraising drive, and now is the time to...
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Le 22, on ferme! - Artist-run centres across Québec support the student movement
Over the last month and a half, students across Québec have been mobilising against the dramatic tuition hikes being imposed by the Charest government and education minister Line Beauchamp. Emerging...
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News Remix: Mar 23 – April1, 2012 - A bricolage of (some of) last weeks news...
Nairobi graffiti by artists Uhuru B, Swift, Smokilah and Bankslave Kenyan graffiti artists are painting the walls of Nairobi with reminders of government corruption. Executions are up in the Middle...
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Some kind of monster - Film screening cancelled amid unsubstantiated...
Canadian filmmaker and activist John Greyson is no stranger to controversy — whether haranguing Justin Bieber to pull concerts scheduled for Israel, supporting queer film festivals in hostile...
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Step Right Up to See the GOP’s Amazing War on Women
Mother Jones’ illustrator Zina Saunders takes on the GOP’s oppressive and backwards stance on women in her illustrated political cartoon this week, in which you are invited to step right up and watch...
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Ai Wei Wei installs live webcams in home - Artists winks at Chinese...
Artist Ai Wei Wei has installed live webcams in his home so that authorities – and worried supporters – can keep track of his day-to-day whereabouts and welfare. Feeling hemmed in by increasingly...
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That’s a wrap? - Killing Saskatchewan's film tax credit is economic nonsense
The cast from InSecurity. The TV show will no longer be produced in Saskatchewan. With the announcement of the axing of the Saskatchewan Film Employment Tax Credit, we are effectively telling the rest...
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Art for social justice: 12 remarkable women - Roots to Resistance project...
Natalia Estemirova Twelve women. Twelve stories of political courage. Twelve portraits. The Roots to Resistance project is spreading word about the groundbreaking work of twelve women who have...
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City of Vancouver launches Arts & Culture Policy Council
The City of Vancouver is now home to an Arts and Culture Policy Council which will advise City Council on civic programs relating to arts and culture. The creation of the council was announced back in...
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Privatizing creativity: the ruse of creative capitalism
Ties by Henry Gepfer (henrygepfer.carbonmade.com) 1. The new hype about creativity Who can hate creativity? Who would want less of it? No one, obviously. But something profound has happened to the...
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Who in US Congress support the arts?
Barack Obama by Tyler Streeter Other than the outrage caused by Mitt Romney’s promise to fire Big Bird, there’s been virtually no discussion on arts issues leading up to the November 6 elections in...
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Do grassroots archives have a future? - Exhibition from archive of activist...
About 40 people gathered in Toronto last night to discuss what many hope will grow into a movement for archiving grassroots histories. The public meeting was organized by Ulli Diemer of the Connexions...
View ArticlePussy Riot videos banned by Russian court
A Moscow court has ordered Russian internet providers to block videos by Pussy Riot, calling them “extremist” and seeking to incite “mass disorder”. “To me this is a clear attribute of censorship —...
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Carrot loophole saves theatre from tax hike
Austerity measures in Spain have increased taxes on nearly everything. Tax on theatre tickets was bumped from 8 to 21 percent, and in an already challenging economy, theatre companies were naturally...
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Sony hatches ploy to keep Bob Dylan out of the public domain
Bob Dylan has a new album out, but you’re not supposed to listen to it. Sony Music has released a box set of demos by the artist, entitled The 50th Anniversary Collection: The Copyright Extension...
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Brazil to give $25 monthly culture stipend to workers
The National Museum of Brazil While many governments are cutting funding to the arts and disingenuously downplaying the economic importance of culture, Brazil may be headed in the opposite direction....
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NSCAD students disrupt university board meeting to announce manifesto
Several NSCAD Board of Governors leave the boardroom as students read the NSCAD Manifesto. (Handout photo.) Last week over 100 students from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, concerned about...
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Digital media challenge offers $100,000 for critical work on democracy
A new digital media challenge is looking for creative work that addresses the need to improve democracy in the United States. And as it is with American democracy in practice, large sums of money are...
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The Documentary Download Dilemma - A Conversation with Doc-streamers Thought...
Much ink has been spilled and pixels punctuated regarding the ongoing controversial topic around the copyright, downloading, streaming and file sharing of creative content — yet there has been little...
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Canadian gov’t approves filming immigration raid, deportation process for...
The Canadian government has approved what appears to be the crass exploitation of human suffering for entertainment. In a new low, Safety Minister Vic Toews approved the filming of an immigration...
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Calgary muzzles artists critical of tar sands
Eeny, Meeny, Miny by Bill Helin The Raincoast Conservation Foundation had a permit from the City of Calgary to display their travelling art exhibition, Artists for an Oil-Free Coast, at city hall....
View ArticleVideo: Max Haiven on The Debt of Creativity
Activist and art professor Max Haiven recently delivered a TED talk at TEDxNovaScotia titled The Debt of Creativity, in which he elaborates on the ideas he discussed in his essay Privatizing...
View ArticleShould artists be able to pay taxes with artwork?
As income tax filing deadlines approach across North America, many Mexican artists will be counting canvases instead of pay stubs. In Mexico, a country that has lost over $870 billion to tax evasion...
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