Architecture as Activism Handbook

Huda Akbar - Madeleine Cardin - Nour Fahmy - Fiona LamNora Lindberg - Christopher Mulliken - Elham Nazari - Neil PopkoJayda Saydam - Andres Somasco - Matthew Soules - Katie Theall - Remi Yuan

University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

003 - 004 actions in space

005 - 022 typology of actions marching, mutating, performing, constructing defacing, destroying, blockading, occupying

023 - 026 sites of action

027 - 028 space in actions

029 - 044 typology of actions mapping, mobilizing, influencing, conceptualizing, preserving, educating, documenting

045 - 048 activist media

actions in space.

Typology of Actions

This section identifies the many actions related to activism and isolates them so that activism can be understood not only by it’s intention but also by the fundimental actions by which it is executed. On the following page is a list of actions extracted from pre-existing activist movements which creates a framework that categorizes the different movements. This categorization is can be used to understand activist movements and use the fundimental elements to launch

your own movement for a selected cause. The typologies created are by no means all encapsulating or static. This means that more types can be created and added as new movements are conceived.

Typology of Actions

Marching is maybe the most well-known form of activism and identifies the mass movement of bodies through space in support of a cause.

Marching

Identifies the changing or repurposing of existing architecture or objects to support a new cause or communicate a message.

Mutating

The planned choreography of multiple bodies in space to create a movement or shape which communicates a certain intention.

Performing

The conception of physical objects which are displayed in public spaces to spaces to encourage responses or interactions.

Typology of Actions Defacing

The act of using paint or signage to communicate messages on the exterior of buildings or any other public surface.

The act of tearing down architecture, monuments or other physical structures to identify the rejection of certain ideals and the transtion to new ones.

Destroying

Used frequently and usually includes the use of bodies or temporary structures to create a baracade that blocks a certain entity from completing a task.

Blockading

The static occupation of a space by bodies which communicates the public rejection of a certain idea or policy. Often performed in places of power or governance.

Marching

This diagram identifies the different elements necessary to create a successul march of protest and seeks to understand

the act of marching in it’s most fundimental way. The history of marching comes from the military ritual and is

mimicked by the public in the demonstration of power.

Typology of Actions

Props & Signs

Props and signs are used to communicate the intended message or demand change.

Crowd Movement

The number of people present represents the public support.

The forward movement of the march allows for the act to reach more people as it passes multiple locations and hopefully recruit more participants.

Chanting & Music

Marches often benefit greatly from an acoustic element which brings attention to the procession by calling out bystanders who are inside or out of eyesight.

Route & Destination

The route can often be symbolic or can leader the march by strategic buildings or check points. It also ends in a destination which has the power to make the changes that are being demanded or in a place of power which is symbolic to the movement.

Mutating

This is an example of how mutations of existing architecture or objects can serve to convey a message to the public. It also

identifies the different strategies that can be used to enact this type of activism. This is a common strategy used by

architects around the world and utilizes the tools of architecture in a very direct way.

Typology of Actions

Host

This is usually an abandoned space, structure or object which can be repurposed for the betterment of the public.

Parasite

This is an addition which gives the old entity a new funtion or meaning.

Supplies

This is salvaged or repurposed supplies used to construct the additions. These can often be chosen carefully to strengthen the message of the activist campaign

“ Handbook of Architectural Activism ”

Performing

This shows the aspects of performance in activism which can be used to convey messages through

choreographed movement. The main elements of an activist cause can be communicated dance or other forms of

organized movment like the shaping of symbols.

Typology of Actions

Choreography

Coordinated movement led by a group or singular individual which expresses something about the cause.

Performer

The participants who are taking part in the performance. Often the paricpants can also be choreographing or organizing the perfomance as they participate.

Site Context

The site can give the performance context and enhance the clarity of the message.

Social Media

Online platforms can often be used to organize and plan choreographed performances due to their ability to enable large amounts of people to communicate easily.

Typology of Actions

Constructing

This typology can cover many different forms of activism but was created to designate the projects which are constructed

from a clean slate. This covers public art projects as well as new architectural constructions. The following diagram covers the

“ Handbook of Architectural Activism ”

main elements to consider when starting a new activist construction.

Typology of Actions

Intention

Often these types of constructions can be used to prevent authorities or other personel from accomplishing certain tasks which are adverse to the cause.

Object or Structure

A constructed installation or structure which helps deliver the message or enforce an action that is to be communicated though interaction.

Site Context

Because new constructions are not added onto existing structures or objects it is very important to consider the site of the build. This will be the main context provider for the cause and may influence the success of the message greatly.

“ Handbook of Architectural Activism ”

liberty for who?

Defacing

This diagram identifies the different elements necessary to successfully deface, as an act of activisim, in which through

additions a new message is communicate and/or the original meaning of a place, message or object is changed.

Typology of Actions

Place or Object

An object or place of some signifigance which is usually symbolic of what is being contested. Examples include: statue, art installtion or building.

Alteration

An alteration (eg. paint, banner, decoration, carving) which gives the old entity a new meaning or obsurers the existing one.

Message

A slogan, tag or sign which communicates the intended purpose of the defacement.

“

Destroying

Organizations, institutions, government, and people use constructions to perpetuate their agenda, often through buildings,

spaces, monuments, art or other physical objects. Destruction of these constructions is an act of opposition to these structures

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through removing their presence and in the process challenging their power.

Typology of Actions

Contested Object or Site

An object or site of contention. These could include; physical information (eg. books, signs, etc), monuments, public art, landscapes or buildings

Destructive Action

How do you want to eleminiate the subject of contest? You can demolish it through smashing/pounding, tearing it down, exploding or igniting

Public vs. Anonymously

Undertaken in public, this is a direct act of rebellion typically intended to challenge larger structures. However, when done privately may indicate the importance of elimination over the people taking action.

“

Blockading

This typology is often paired with occupancy because it often requires human enforcers to maintain, however it distinct it

that its intention is to impede the movement often to places of power or from places needing protection. The intention being to

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disrupt activities or actions one seeks to challenge.

Typology of Actions

Ingress/Egress Point

Selecting the main or only point of access to a site is important to disrupt activities and demand attention.

Obstacle

This can be an object, informal structure, vehicle and/or people that can impede access.

Enforcers

To increase the longevity and impact of a blockade continued maintenance is required. This can include supporting people acting as human obstacles, impairing the removal of the obstacles and building/rebuilding obstacles.

“ Handbook of Architectural Activism ”

Occupying

This shows how occupation can be practiced and lists some of the tools and major elements involved in conducting a

successful occupation. Often occupations are temnporary but can last for long periods of time or become permanent

settlements or lead to land concession.

Symbolic Site

The site is very important in the act of occupation and can sometimes represent land that the participants want to claim. The occupation can also be to use spacial pressure to force a powerful entity to make changes.

Shelter

Because occupations often last a very long time it is extremely important to have good enclosures to live in to protect from extreme weather conditions.

Props & Signs

To help clarify the demands that are being made.

Participants

People are essential to holding the space and bringing energy to the movement.

sites of action.

This section identifies the spaces in which many of the activist actions listed above are performed. The intention of the identification of these spaces is to examine where actions of protest happen and how these places are significant. This categorization can be used to understand activist movements and use the fundimental elements to launch your own movement for a selected cause. The typologies created are by no means all encapsulating or

static. This means that more types can be created and added as new movements are conceived.

Often places of governance of the headquarters of powerful corporations or organizations.

Places of Power

A good place to mobilize from because authorities cannot prevent occupation of public space.

Public Open Space

Can be a good place to construct installations or use as a space for planning or action.

Aboandoned Places

These experience a lot of pedestrian and media traffic can be good places to get attention.

Places of Conflict

Infrastructure

Borders, walls or places of division often experience a lot of conflict and can be powerful places to make a statement. “ Handbook of Architectural Activism ”

Buildings, bridges, highways and other large scale infrstructue which can host high profile actions.

space in actions.

Typology of Actions

This section identifies the a selection of actions taken to execute activism through a means of non-physical interventions. Similar to the previous catagories seen in Actions In Space, these typologies have been extracted from the past and on-going activist interventions and movements within the realm of architecture. The intent of these typogolies is help better identify the ways in which activism can occur without the need for

physical occupation. Within the current era of technology, new methods of activism are constantly evolving. This means that there is open opportunity for additional methods of actions to occur.

An illustrative representation of a cause, often rendering unseen information, visible.

Mapping

The use of media outlets to provoke a response from a targeted audience.

Mobilizing

Theoretical activist ideas, projects, and actions that are not realized into physical space.

Influencing

A call to action that gathers support towards a collective cause.

Typology of Actions

Methods of digitally archiving information with the intent to create longevity to a cause.

Preserving

The use of information sharing methods to communicate and engage the public.

Educating

The use of media to record activist events, actions and interventions.

Documenting

Mapping

A visual representation of the information that needs to be shared. This organizational presentation of data is easy to

understand. Possibly combining facts, figures, and images with symbols, colors, and language that shed light on a specific

cause.

Have you discovered a cause that you want to share with people? Have you found information that will change peoples minds? Can you take seemingly unconnected threads of information and see the big picture? Identify the core story of the cause that you want to help.

What information are you trying to relay to the audience? The more focused your information the easier it will be to organize and visualize. What information would surprise your audience? Bringing awareness to your viewer may change their mind.

Are any images immediately recognizable as or with your cause? What is most important information you are sharing? Can the information be shared with out words? Keep it simple and assemble the image carefully paying attention to its message.

Mobilizing

How do you get people moving? Reach out to people by any means available. Social media, letter writing, posters, zines,

community boards. Anywhere people gather they should see your message. An aware community is an involved

community.

Message

Know what you are saying and who it will effect. Target your audience with pertinent information. Make it easy to connect with your cause or you.

Engagement

Tell people what they can do to help. Be specific and supply all the information in a neat little bundle. Peoples time is precious don’t waste it.

Action

What are you asking people to do? Campaign, support, donate, march, boycott, etc...

Influencing

Media has amazing reach in todays society. The ability to give your cause a voice and connect to millions of people in seconds

is very powerful. This ability to reach out is only harnessed if your voice can be heard. A focused message to the right

people from the right people can make a difference.

Who are you trying to reach? Where are they? What are they doing? What do they value? Knowing your target audience will help you clearly define your message.

Message Medium

What are you going to say? Now that you know your Demographic you can shape the message for them. Focus on being concise and clear. Like first impressions you don’t want to make a bad one.

You know your people and your message how are you going to spread it? Your demographic will help give you direction. You have three basic mediums digital, print, or in person. Digital can be image, video, web, or app based. Print can be fliers, posters, magazines, news papers, stickers, graffiti, etc...

Conceptualizing

Thinking helps. Can you get people thinking about your cause? Asking questions and engaging people in ways that

highlight their experiences connects them to a cause. How you project and form your ideas will effect the response they

receive.

Motivation

What sparked your interest in the cause? Who can you help? How can you help? Are you looking for a solution or a new problem? Knowing your motivation will help you create a target.

Idea

Form an idea, plan, manifesto, or purpose around your cause. What do you want to say?

Representation

Who do you need to make your idea happen? How will you reach out to them? The broader your reach the more responses you will receive.

Detail oriented conservation of a cause or its material existence. Does your cause have information or items that are

deteriorating or disappearing at a rapid pace? If so preservation might be the first course of action.

Getting all of the information that you deem important and pertinent to your cause.

Organize all of this information into a format that can be accessed by as many people as possible.

Where is all of this information going to live? A internet database is a good place to start.

Educating

People need to know why your cause is important. Why should they care? Ask yourself what information made you get

involved? Educate yourself before engaging the public. How does your project effect the people you are trying to reach?

The more concrete your argument is the easier it will be to digest.

The more you have the better. Do your homework. Make sure your information is correct. Check and recheck your sources nothing sinks a cause quicker than crying wolf.

Lesson Plan Community

What are you teaching and how are you going to do it? Create a series of objectives, materials, time requirements, activities, and assessments.

Who are you trying to reach and where are they?

TEACH the HELL out of it!

The more people know about the cause and the actions being taken the faster it will spread. This can be done with fliers, posters, pamphlets, phone calls, email, speaking engagements, social media, community groups and more...

Documenting

The documentation of a project or action taken to effect change will help spread the information/message you are exposing. The more media,

organizations, followers, communities, and public you engage the greater chance you have of successful documentation. This media

coverage goes a long way in educating and influencing for your cause.

Typology of Actions

Witness

Reporters, spectators, witnesses these people create a thread that will validate the movement and actions of activism.

Record Report

The mediums of documentation are photography, video, sound, writing, music, news outlets, the arts, etc... A comprehensive documentation process will cement a powerful image of the actions and aftermath of the action.

The documentation must be seen in order for it to have an effect. Get it out there in anyway that you can. Online, newspapers, magazines, posters, radio, etc...

“ Handbook of Architectural Activism ”

activist media.

Media is the agency of doing something, method, way, form, agency, channel, forum, avenue, approach, vehicle, voice, instrument, implement, mechanism, apparatus, force that acts on objects at a distance, intervening substance through which impressions are conveyed to the senses, means by which something is communicated or expressed.

Printed and analog media to communicate a cause or message. Examples such as; posters, letters, books, zines, other 2D work

Digital media used as method to represent a cause or a communicator of messages. Examples include; websites, video, social media, apps and more.

Photography

actions through history.

W.E.B. DuBois

In 1900, 37 years after the abolition of slavery in the United States, W.E.B. Du Bois led a team of African American scholars to create an exhibition highlighting the impact of African Americans on the US culture, showcasing the success Black Americans had achieved despite facing

pervasive racism in the United States and the global community.

The assistant librarian of Congress, Daniel Murray, collected more than a thousand books and pamphlets by Negro authors while Du Bois and his students

The Exhibit of American Negroes

conduct a sociological study in Georgia and draft the 60+ charts.

Stanley Spencer, Muriel Matters

One of two airships built by Stanley Spencer, this was hired for a publicity stunt for the Women's Suffrage Movement.

On the day of the State Opening of Parliament, the intention was to fly over King Edward VIII's procession

through central London with prominent suffragist, Muriel Matters, as a passenger.

The payload was 100 lb of pro-suffrage leaflets. In the event, adverse winds prevented this from happening, and the blimp drifted over outer London for

its 90-minute flight, before making a crash landing at Coulsdon in Surrey.

Votes for Women

“ Handbook of Architectural Activism ”

Through the late 1920s, British colonial rule in Nigeria wildly changed how the country was governed. The native Igbo women had an essential political role in their communities and found themselves increasingly undermined by new leaders.

These women used their robust communication

networks to stage a nonviolent protest against their mistreatment. They descend in the thousands to "sit on" or make "war on" undemocratically appointed chiefs by publicly shaming them through singing, dancing, banging on their walls, and even tearing down roofs.

The Women’s War

The British didn't understand the cause of the protests, and the campaign ended after just over one year when the British turned to violence—but not before Nigerian women won important protections for their rights and regained some of their political power.

Oloko, Nigeria

The Rural Women of Owerri and Calabar Provinces

Abdul Ghaffar Khan

The Red Shirts movement was originally a social reform organization focusing on education and eliminating blood feuds.

Khan drew his first recruits from the young men who had graduated from his schools. Trained and uniformed, they served behind their officers

and filed into various villages to seek recruits.

They began by wearing a simple white overshirt, but the white was soon dirtied. A couple of men had their shirts dyed at the local tannery, and the brick-red color proved a breakthrough; this distinctive color earned the Khudai

Khidmatgar movement activists the name "The Red Shirts". Another reason for the choice of red color was a symbolic adherence of the anti-colonial movements to the revolutionary and socialist discourse.

The Red Shirt Movement

Followers

Moscow, Russia

Moscow Locals

In the 1930s, inflatable sculptures were used as attractions at mass events –first in the United States, then later in the USSR.

In the Soviet Union, inflatable drills and floating portraits of Stalin at the May Day demonstrations and the parades marking the anniversary of the October

Revolution aimed to reinforce the patriotic sentiments of the working class. One such inflatable was the 20-meter snake with the swastika on its head from the Red Square in 1934. It mobilized sentiments against the rise of fascism in Europe.

The snake is a propaganda parody of national socialism,

The Nazi Snake

which is indicated by a swastika.

On both sides, use was made of these seemingly harmless instruments to transport the people into a dream world, let them forget their everyday life for a moment and give them the feeling that capitalism or socialism would lead them into a bright future.

‘Moscow, 1934 Inflatable snake at the Red Square on the 17th Celebration of the October Revolution. Krasnagolsk Archive’

Photographer unknown. (Courtesy Artúr van Balen Collection)

African National Congress (ANC)

The South African Defiance Campaign aimed to overturn and refuse unjust laws toward Africans. More than 8,500 volunteers or 'defiers' were imprisoned for peacefully refusing to obey apartheid laws.

The campaign,attracted thousands into political activity. During the campaign, acts of defiance were accompanied by freedom songs and the thumbs-up sign, becoming the

campaign's symbol and resistance against these laws. In 1950, the apartheid government established the passbook system designed to segregate the population. Many burned their passbooks as a form of protest.

In Port Elizabeth, 30 people entered a railway station through the "Europeans Only" entrance and were arrested. Numerous volunteers marched into city centers where they required passes to enter -

Defiance Campaign

most of whom were arrested. All were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act with promoting communism but were released on bail.

While the campaign did not achieve its intended goal, through these actions, the United Nations recognized that the South African racial policy was an international issue, and a UN Commission was established to investigate the situation.

Bloemfontein, South Africa

burning passports

“Defiance Against Unjust Laws Campaign, South Africa, 1952” article, defiance-campaign-1952, Nelson-mandela-timeline, defiance campaign 1952

The Sunagawa Struggle was a protest movement against the expansion of the U.S. Air Force's Tachikawa Air Base into the nearby village of Sunagawa.

The expansion plans would have involved the confiscation of farmland and the eviction of 140 families. Bloody Sunagawa is seen as the most violent and bloody of protests

during the movement, the climax of Japan's "Peace Constitution" and resistance to American imperialism. The struggle began to gain media attention, which the protesters used to their advantage.

Contrary to previous efforts of force and fighting with police, the groups decided to sit unarmed with white shirts and white cloth over their heads

The Sunagawa Struggle: Bloody

while letting themselves be beaten by the police, turning their garments red-stained from the blood. With such visibility, they gained sympathy, leading to more favorable media coverage and further growth of the movement.

white shirts

stained shirts

police

A two-mile "geodesic dome” spanning Midtown Manhattan proposal that would regulate weather and reduce air pollution. It would have covered the island from the East River to the Hudson River, from 21st Street to 64th Street.

Fuller planned for the entire dome to be climate controlled, rather than each building regulating its heating

and cooling. The logic was to reduce the energy required by centralizing the heating and cooling, savings that the city would get to cover the construction cost.

Another point was to reduce the cost of snow removal, which beyond monetary value, adds a layer of human benefit, realizing the struggle of new yorkers having to trudge through the snow during the

winter months. There was also the benefit of rainwater collection, proposing a centralized reservoir fed from channeled rainwater over the dome.

While it has yet to be constructed, the concept began to open ideas of urban sustainability and the collection of communal resources.

Over

Buckminster Fuller and Thomas C. Howard of Synergetics, inc.

Super Studio

Instead of producing buildings or designed objects, Superstudio worked in various other media, including film, collage, publications, and exhibitions.

Its members’ work critiqued institutionalized knowledge and practice patterns in the designed environment—sometimes savagely so.

Their practice became an

instrument for examining both design’s impact on social life and the politics of design.

Super studio’s critical practice can also be seen as a “refusal to work” in that these young architects decided not to provide their professional training as labor toward what they viewed as corrupt capitalist interests (although they did translate some of their discursive ideas into furniture that went on to be

Continuous Monument

commercially produced). Informed by autonomism, if we consider “Superstudio’s unorthodox decision to refrain from the building, one is forced to think closely about the role of the autonomous designer in the profession itself.”

“Superstudio’s declared right to refuse the labor assigned to them had the utopian potential to upset the efficient operation of the design field.

‘"Continuous Monument," Superstudio, 1969’ https://designaftercapitalism.org/superstudio

In 1969 the Guerilla Art Action group (GAAG) entered the Museum of Modern Art in New York with bags of bull blood hidden underneath their clothes.

In the museum lobby, the group started wrestling and breaking the plastic bags, lying on the floor covered in

blood. The performance, called Blood Bath, was an action to protest the rigidity of art institutions and how these support societal power structures.

The performance criticized the fact that the Rockefeller family was a part of the MoMas board on the one hand while

benefiting from the weapon industry of the Vietnam War on the other. Until today GAAG and its actions are influencing movements like the Guerrilla Girls or the Occupy movement worldwide.

Blood Bath

The Guerilla Art Action group (GAAG) (Founded by the New Yorker artists Jon Hendricks and Jean Toche)

2. Wrestling and fighting eachother, breaking bags with blood

3. Ending up lying on the floor, covered in blood.

1.Entering museum with bags filled with blood underneath clothes.

Ant Farm dealt with the intersection of architecture, design, and media art, critiquing the North American culture of mass media and consumerism. It produced works in several formats, including agitprop events, manifestos, videos, performances, and installations.

Their early work reacted to the heaviness and fixity of the Brutalist movement, in contrast to which they proposed an inflatable architecture that was

cheap, easy to transport, and quick to assemble. This type of architecture fitted well with their rhetoric of nomadic, communal lifestyles in opposition to what they saw as the rampant consumerism of the 1970s USA.

The inflatables questioned the standard tenets of building: these were structures with no fixed form and could not be described in the usual architectural representations instead, they promoted a type of architecture that moved

away from relying on expert knowledge. Ant Farm produced a manual for making your pneumatic structures, the Inflatocookbook. The inflatables thus constituted a type of participatory architecture that allowed the users to take control of their environment. Events were also organized inside the inflatables, set up at festivals, university campuses, or conferences to host lectures, workshops, seminars, or simply as a place to hang out.

Clean Air Pod

performance with Andy Shapiro and Kelly Gloger at the University of California, Berkeley’

Stockholm, Sweden

Alternativ stad (the Stockholm branch of Friends of the Earth)

In 1967 a new city plan was presented for Stockholm which suggested a new metro station and commercial facilities in Kungsträdgården.

For the new buildings to take place 13 elm trees would have to be cut down, something which raised dissatisfaction among the public. The action group An Alternative City

arranged a resistance movement of protest meetings, appeals, media attention as well as a telephone chain, making it possible to gather a large number of people on a short notice.

The night to May 12th 1971 the Elms was planned to be chopped down in secret but the activists gathered, climbed

The Elm Conflict

the trees and managed to keep the Elms standing, which they still do until this day.

The Elm Conflict was a turning point in Swedish city planning and a symbol for the climate movement which was on the rise.

Hammock

Occupying building

‘People occupying the building and hanging from hammocks’ Stockholmskällan, photographer Lennart af Petersens https://children68.hypotheses.org/162

Cleve Jones

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, often abbreviated to AIDS Memorial Quilt or AIDS Quilt, is a memorial to celebrate the lives of people who have died of AIDS-related causes.

Weighing an estimated 54 tons, it is the world's most significant piece of community

folk art as of 2020.

It was conceived in 1985, during the early years of the AIDS pandemic, when social stigma prevented many people living with AIDS from receiving funerals. It has been displayed on the Mall in Washington, D.C., several times. In 2020, it returned to

AIDS Memorial Quilt

the AIDS Memorial in San Francisco and can be seen virtually.

‘The AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1987.

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith’ Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Baltic pro-independence movements Rahvarinne of Estonia, the Tautas fronte of Latvia, and Sąjūdis of Lithuania

Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia Aimed towards regaining freedom from the dictatorship of the Communist Party in the USSR, the Baltic Way was the largest and most important campaign of the anti-soviet protests of the 1980’s.

On August 23rd 1989 at 7:00PM, approximately two million inhabitants of the Baltic states joined hands to form a

600 km long human chain through Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Six weeks prior, organizers mapped out specific locations to specific cities, towns and villages to make sure that the chain would be unbroken.

The exact timing of the demonstration was coordinated by special radio

The Baltic Way

broadcasts, and participants carried with them portable radios to be kept in the loop and listen to speeches by popular front activists and politicians.

‘The flags of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are held up in between demonstrators participating in the Baltic Way’. Embassy of Latvia, 1989.

Tsang Tsou-choi

For 50 years, Tsang Tsou-Choi expressed his belief that his family is the rightful ruler of Kowloon, an area of Hong Kong, by writing his claim on lamps, pavements, walls and pillars.

The contents of his calligraphy usually contain some or all of the following: his name, his

title (King or Emperor of China, Kowloon or Hong Kong, depending), a list of ancestors, the names of famous Chinese emperors and phrases such as, “Down with the Queen of England”.

His calligraphic style modernly repurposes one the most respected art forms in Chinese

The King of Kowloon

culture, leading to his work's rise from obscurity to celebration. The calligraphy is now on the official list of Hong Kong identity symbols to be protected.

Lebbeus Woods

Lebbeus Woods investigations deal with the designing of systems in crisis, such as the unrealized "Berlin Free Zone" project.

Through this project, his goal was to encourage the citizens of Berlin to reconnect with their city and fragmented culture

through architectural means. Starting with the imagined destruction of the neglected and abandoned public and private institutions, he proposed the construction of spaces with extreme conditions of living and dwelling for the ones who abolish the conventional

principles of architecture.

The drawings are mixed media elements spliced together; mainly printing, colored pencil, pastel, and ink on paper.

Berlin Free Zone

‘Berlin Free Zone 3-2 by Lebbeus Woods (1990)’ Woods, Lebbeus. Lebbeus Woods Drawings for the Berlin Free Zone Project. (1990). Print

AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)

ACT UP was founded in New York in 1987, organised by activists unhappy with the passivity of AIDS initiatives. On World Aids Day in 1993, a 72 foot long giant pink sheath appeared over the Luxor Obelisk in Place de la Concorde, Paris.

The project was sponsored by Italian clothing company Benetton and put up without French government approval.

According to the Guiness Book of World Records, this is the world's largest condom to date. Projects replicating this one have appeared in places

such as Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia.

World's Largest Condom

‘80-meter-tall Obelisk of Buenos Aires in 2008’ https://www.buenosairesfreewalks.com/uncategorised-en/5-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-buenos-aires/

Michael Rakowitz

Made out of Ziploc bags, packing tape, and sheets of polyethylene, each of these shelters is custom-made, and the design process begins with a conversation between designer and occupant.

The paraSITE shelters attach to the air outtake ducts of

buildings, which serve as the “host” from which they derive the warm air that heats and inflates them.

The project began with the distribution of these shelters to over 30 unhoused people in Boston and Cambridge, MA and New York City, and since

paraSITE Homeless Shelter

then, they are constructed and distributed every year in Chicago.

Instructions on how to build these shelters can be found on Rakowitz’s website (most units cost around 5$ to construct).

single hero image

Vancouver, Canada

Vancouver Affordable Housing Social Movement

On September 14, 2002, groups of people came together and occupied the old Woodward's department store in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.

The occupation was in response to the newly elected B.C. Liberal government's cuts to social services. The prominent demand of

Woodsquat

Woodsquat called for 100 percent social housing on the Woodward's Department Store site.

Activists were pushed out twice by police, coming back to the site each time. Eventually, a tent city was established around the building's perimeter as more people showed up in support.

The site was redeveloped in 2010 and contains around 20 percent social housing, with the rest of the site taken up by market-rate condos.

“ The original Woodward's department store tower during the occupation. ” Murray Bush, Vancouver Media Co-Op (2002)

Vem Pra Rua and other civil society movements

In mid-March of 2009, nearly 7 million people marched in more than 50 Brazilian cities, triggered by news of numerous politicians allegedly accepting bribes from state-owned energy company Petrobras between 2003 and 2010.

The Vem Pra Rua (Movement Come to the Streets) is a Brazilian socio political movement founded as an attempt to organize and unite people for the common goal of impeaching the President of Brazil.

This protest was considered

the largest popular mobilization in the country, with demonstrators targeting many popular architectural sites, such as the National Congress Building in Brasilia and the São Paulo Museum of Art.

Protest Against Corruption

“ Handbook of Architectural Activism ”

Brasilia, Brazil

Santiago Cirugeda

The Post Nuclear Spider is one of several buildings on the site titled La Carpa in Seville, Spain. Before 2010 the site was an unoccupied piece of land which had been disregarded by the state because of economic recession.

To reclaim this site for the public Cirugeda and others

illegally built the spider which his friend then lived in for a full year without power or running water to gain preliminary land concession which allowed them to legally occupy the land as squatters.

After this 2 circus tents and several other temporary structures were erected and the site went on to host tens of

Post Nuclear Spider

thousands of people who attended concerts, theateland r performances, live music and workshops there.

The site was eventually closed by authorities and the structures disassembled but it remains an important example of the way abandoned spaces can be repurposed for public use.

Seville, Spain

‘Aerial shot of La Carpa’

‘Close up view of the spider construction’

Vancouver, Canada

Chinatown Action Group and Community Members

On the corner of Keefer and Columbia, the 105 Keefer Street project has been revised five times since 2016 in hopes of gaining approval from the city, but is consistently met with opposition from community members living around the Chinatown neighborhood and

as a result has yet to be approved by city council.

The public hearing for the project attracted 300 speakers, who expressed their opposition to the permitted developments under the existing zoning, as well as their opinion that there should

be no further development on the vacant lot (or any other property) in Chinatown.

In response to calls from anti-development activists, the City Council approved policy changes that restrict the height and size of buildings in Chinatown.

‘Community members at a press conference opposing the construction of the condo project at 105 Keefer Street.’ Melody Ma (2017)

The Spruce (Yalynka in Ukrainian) is not the result of deliberate artistic intent, but rather as “accidental” art.

The frame of the Spruce is an unfinished city Christmas tree which is installed each year for the holiday season. However, protestors appropriated it,

decking it out with banners and flags, completely reframing its meaning.

They transformed it into an anti monument and with it, along with the barricades, aesthetically opposed the surrounding architecture of Maidan Nezalezhnosti

(Independence Square), the large square in the downtown of Kyiv where the protests mostly took place.

The Yalynka (the Spruce)

Kyiv, Ukraine

Spruce, approx. 114 ft. high x 41 ft. diam. Independence Square, Kyiv’ Oleksandr Ratushnyak (2013)

Often called the Umbrella Revolution, Umbrella Movement, or Occupy Movement, these sit-in demonstrations paralyzed Hong Kong’s financial district for 79 days in late 2014.

These protests demanded more transparent elections and the universal suffrage that Hong Kong was promised in

the Basic Law. Once established, this “protest city” consisted of tents where protesters camped overnight, communal dining spaces, study areas where students did homework, and a stage where protest anthems were sung to a cheering crowd.

Police forcibly cleared the

Occupy Central with Love & Peace

protesters in December 2014. Authorities granted no democratic concessions.

Hong Kong, China

Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, Benny Tai and Chan Kin-man

‘Complete with things like cooking tables and couches, demonstrators set up many outdoor living spaces during the occupation’.

The New Yorker (2014) The Anarchists of Occupy Central.

Ai Wei Wei

In 2016, Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei attached 14,000 life jackets (used by refugees crossing from Turkey to Greece) to the columns of 19th century music venue Berlin’s Konzerthaus.

To maximize media exposure of this project, the intervention

at the Konzerthaus was installed to coincide with the Cinema for Peace gala, attracting international media attention.

Authorities in Lesbos provided the 14,000 discarded life jackets. Ai Wei Wei has created similar installations in

cities such as Quebec City and Copenhagen.

Life Jackets at Konzerthaus

life jackets

Life jackets hanging off the columns of Konzerthaus.’ Clemens Bilan, Getty Images (2016)

eL Seed

In 2016, street artist eL Seed completed a mural spanning 50 buildings in the Manshiyat Nasr area of Cairo, famous for its “Garbage City” slum, where residents collect, sort and sell recyclables.

Initially, eL Seed took a photo of the neighborhood from

Moqattam mountain and overlaid a transparency of the mural plan.

With the help of the local community and using the bricks as a guide, the painting began. It took 3 weeks to paint the walls. The quote on the mural is from a 3rd century

mural

‘View of the mural as seen from the mountain next to Garbage City’

eL Seed (2016)

Twenty-two Greenpeace USA Climbers

22 Greenpeace USA activists have shut down the busiest oil shipping channel in the United States in a peaceful protest on the Fred Hartman Bridge in Baytown, Texas, United States.

Climbers suspended from the bridge plan to stay in place for

24 hours to challenge business as usual for the fossil fuel industry.

Each day, over 700,000 barrels of oil pass through the channel, and should the fossil fuel industry have its way, this number will increase to at least 2 million.

Greenpeace Bridge

climbers

‘A blockade on the Fred Hartman Bridge in Baytown, Texas’ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/24261/22-activists-are-blocking-the-largest-oil-export-facility-in-the-us-images-from-above/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/greenpeace-activists-protest-hanging-from-fred-hartman-bridge-in-houston-today-2019-09-12/

‘Environmental activists affiliated with the organization Greenpeace dangle off the Fred Hartman Bridge in Houston in the act o f protest’

Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello

Straddling the steel border fence separating El Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Mexico, a seesaw was temporarily installed by architecture studio Rael San Fratello.

The piece was inspired by the Secure Fence Act of 2006. It features three pink seesaws, which are installed between the slats on the border fence, which allow people on either

side of the border to see one another.

The unveiling of Teeter-Totter Wall, in the El Paso suburb of Sunland Park, New Mexico, was overseen by Mexican soldiers and US Border Patrol agents; families on both sides gathered to play during the temporary installation, which lasted about a half an hour.

Teeter Totter Wall

“ Crowds gather on both sides of the border to try the seesaws” Design Museum London (2019)

A post or poster, from Decolonize This Place, a movement focusing on decolonial actions. DTP started in May 2016 with a protest at the Brooklyn Museum against the displacement of Palestinians and Brooklynites.

Their website defines their actions as resisting and

unsettling “settler colonial structures”. This post puts together information from Sarah Parcak about how to take down a monument.

Monuments historically depict people or moments that misrepresent or perpetuate colonial ideas of power and structure.

How to Take Down a

These public monuments are a constant reminder of oppressive and revisionist historical practices.

Decolonize This Space with information from Sarah Parcak

Minecraft: Digital Media

Journalists Reporters Without Borders

The Uncensored Library takes the form of a world served by Minecraft and created by the NGO of journalists Reporters Without Borders.

Its purpose is to bypass the censorship of countries that do not have freedom of the press. This library contains a number

of press articles (translated or not) that have been banned in their countries of origin. The library is available since the World Day against Cybercensorship, March 12, 2020. The library is accessed through the video game Minecraft, either by downloading the world via the

official website or by connecting to their server.

Uncensored Library

year duration type 2020

scale 2020present library, cybercensorship, NGO, nineCraft

global

Bahador Hadizadeh

Since the execution of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who removed her veil, Iranian women have been protesting by cutting their hair.

These gestures have provoked numerous reactions. Among them, an Iranian artist, Bahador Hadizadeh,

published an animation of the Azadi Tower in Tehran covered with black hair blowing in the wind.

The hair clearly symbolizes the freedom of Iranian women. And Azadi Tower is one of the most famous cultural references in the capital. Built

Azadi Tower Meme

in 1971, it was supposed to symbolize an era of modernity for the country. It means the tower of freedom. Over time, it has become a major gathering point for Iranian protesters.

‘Bahador Hadizadeh’s animation of Tehran’s Azadi Tower covered by dark hair blowing in the wind shared through social media.’

Tweet by Hamid Ebrahimnia

global scope.

Project Locations

051 Paris, France

The Exhibit of American Negroes, 1900

053 London, UK

Actions Airship, 1909

055 Oloko, Nigeria

The Women’s War, 1929

057 Moscow, Russia

Inflatable The Soviet Union, 1930

059 North-West Frontier Province, India

The Redshirts Movement, 1930

061 Bloemfontein, South Africa Defiance Campaign, 1952

063 Sunagawa, Japan

The Sunagawa Struggle: Bloody Sunagawa, 1955

065 New York City, U.S.A Dome Over Manhattan, 1960

067 New York City, U.S.A Blood Bath, 1969

069 Florence, Italy Superstudio, 1966

071 California, USA

Ant Farm: Clean Air Pod, 1970

073 Stockholm, Sweden

The Elm Conflict, 1971

075 Washington, D.C., U.S.A AIDS Memorial Quilt, 1985

077 Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia

The Baltic Way, 1989

079 Hong Kong, China

The King of Kowloon, 1956

081 Berlin, Germany

Berlin Free Zone, 1990

083 Paris, France

World’s Largest Condom, 1993

085 Chicago & New York City, U.S.A

paraSITE Homeless Shelter, 1998

087 Vancouver, Canada Woodsquat, 2022

089 Brasilia, Brazil Protest Against Corruption, 2015

091 Seville, Spain Post Nuclear Spider, 2010

093 Vancouver, Canada 105 Keefer Street, 2016

095 Kyiv, Ukraine

The Yalynka (The Spruce), 2013

097 Hong Kong, China Occupy Central with Love & Peace, 2014

099 Berlin, Germany Life Jackets at Konzerthaus, 2016

101 Cairo, Egypt Perception, 2016

103 Texas, U.S.A Greenpeace Bridge, 2019

105 Mexico/U.S.A Teeter Totter Wall, 2019

Project Locations

051 Paris, France

The Exhibit of American Negroes, 1900

053 London, UK

Actions Airship, 1909

055 Oloko, Nigeria

The Women’s War, 1929

057 Moscow, Russia

Inflatable The Soviet Union, 1930

059 North-West Frontier Province, India

The Redshirts Movement, 1930

061 Bloemfontein, South Africa Defiance Campaign, 1952

063 Sunagawa, Japan

The Sunagawa Struggle: Bloody Sunagawa, 1955

065 New York City, U.S.A Dome Over Manhattan, 1960

067 New York City, U.S.A Blood Bath, 1969

069 Florence, Italy Superstudio, 1966

071 California, USA

Ant Farm: Clean Air Pod, 1970

073 Stockholm, Sweden

The Elm Conflict, 1971

075 Washington, D.C., U.S.A AIDS Memorial Quilt, 1985

077 Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia

The Baltic Way, 1989

079 Hong Kong, China

The King of Kowloon, 1956

081 Berlin, Germany

Berlin Free Zone, 1990

083 Paris, France

World’s Largest Condom, 1993

085 Chicago & New York City, U.S.A

paraSITE Homeless Shelter, 1998

087 Vancouver, Canada Woodsquat, 2022

089 Brasilia, Brazil Protest Against Corruption, 2015

091 Seville, Spain Post Nuclear Spider, 2010

093 Vancouver, Canada 105 Keefer Street, 2016

095 Kyiv, Ukraine

The Yalynka (The Spruce), 2013

097 Hong Kong, China Occupy Central with Love & Peace, 2014

099 Berlin, Germany Life Jackets at Konzerthaus, 2016

101 Cairo, Egypt Perception, 2016

103 Texas, U.S.A Greenpeace Bridge, 2019

105 Mexico/U.S.A Teeter Totter Wall, 2019

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what is activism?