Activist Art Organizations and Websites

The following is an alphabetical listing of artful activism organizations and websites. While there may be some overlap, these organizations differ from those on our local art groups page in that they are either national in focus (providing workshops, trainings, etc.), primarily online organizations, or activism-oriented galleries.

 
 

Actipedia.org

Actipedia is an open-access, user-generated database of creative activism. It’s a place to read about, comment upon, and share experiences and examples of how activists and artists are using creative tactics and strategies to challenge power and offer visions of a better society. Actipedia draws case studies from everywhere: original submissions, reprinted news articles, snippets of action reports.
 
 

Art Killing Apathy

Art Killing Apathy is Creative Activism. Creative Activism is outreach and change through the mediums that appeal to all people and all of people – their intellect, emotion and conscience. It places itself at the intersection of pop culture and politics, bringing the two together, because after all – when was the last time significant socio-political change came without pop culture standing behind it?
I have a network of artists, sculptors, painters, musicians, poets, comedians and more that work to promote change through their art. Using this network, and my own skill set, I work with socio-political organizations across the country to create both digital and physical campaigns that creatively spread their message to Gen Y.
 
 

ArtRage Gallery

We are committed to breaking down the art world’s boundaries about who is welcome. We believe that everyone has the right to art and that art is essential to building an open, just world. Our vision for change is one that creates a community of open-minded, tolerant individuals with an appreciation for the inclusion of art in everyday life. We offer the community an experience that encourages the breakdown of boundaries so that people can see themselves in the work and then in one another. We exhibit art that cultivates critical thinking skills; leading to question the power structures that exist in our society and to imagine other ways of life. That, we believe, is the seed of a movement for cultural and social change.
 
 

BP or not BP?

We are the Reclaim Shakespeare Company – a merry troupe of players aghast that our beloved Bard’s works and memory have been purloined by BP in a case of greenwash most foul. We are like a drop of water that in the ocean seeks another drop. Together, we will make a flood. We invade stages with courage, humour and respect, well-polished and thoughtful, our aim to win over audiences, to provoke and entertain, and to make the RSC, the British Museum and Tate profoundly uncomfortable with the noxious, treach’rous, belching oily rogue they have chosen as a partner.
 
 

Backbone Campaign

Backbone Campaign’s mission is to provide creative strategies, artful activism trainings, and creative action support to progressive activists, organizers and organizations around the US and beyond in order to invigorate and nurture a people-power, community-based, and internationally-networked nonviolent social movement for human rights, thriving communities, and ecological wellbeing.
 
 

Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution

Both a book and a website, the project consists of short, interrelated modules – creative tactics, action design principles, case studies, and theoretical frameworks – that together comprise an accessible matrix of best practices and ideas in creative campaigning. The website includes the core content of the book as well as a growing array of additional modules, resources, profiles, debates and a cutting-edge beta visualization interface.
 
 

Center for Artistic Activism

The Center for Artistic Activism is a place to explore, analyze, and strengthen connections between social activism and artistic practice. Creative activism is more than just an innovative tactic, it is an entire approach: a perspective, a practice, a philosophy. Our goal is to make more creative activists and more effective artists. We aim to win.
 
 

CultureStrike

CultureStrike is a magazine at the forefront of the national arts movement around immigration.
CultureStrike seeks to support the national and global arts movement around immigration. We are a network of artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, and other cultural workers who want to fight anti-immigrant hate by bringing out the stories of migrants and creating counter-narratives about migration. We commission, publish, and broadcast new art, writing and media, featuring a wide range of literature, art and ideas in our online magazine of culture and politics.
 
 

The Dark Mountain Project

The Dark Mountain Project is a network of writers, artists and thinkers who have stopped believing the stories our civilisation tells itself. We see that the world is entering an age of ecological collapse, material contraction and social and political unravelling, and we want our cultural responses to reflect this reality rather than denying it.
The Project grew out of a feeling that contemporary literature and art were failing to respond honestly or adequately to the scale of our entwined ecological, economic and social crises. We believe that writing and art have a crucial role to play in coming to terms with this reality, and in questioning the foundations of the world in which we find ourselves.
 
 

Desrow Visuals

desrowVISUALS is the website of Chris Goodwin, a freelance photographer specializing in images of social movements, protest, political action & dissent.
Galleries on this site feature photographs of union rallies, marches & picket lines, demonstrations over environmental issues such as climate change and fracking, protests over gun control, middle east issues, immigration reform, GMOs, occupy movement actions, the peace movement and many other movements for political and social change.
 
 

Education Reform Illustrated

Art and writing by Clyde Gaw, an educator (art teacher) “concerned about the direction of American education reform. In particular, I am concerned with the influence of powerful corporate entities, high stakes testing mandates, de-funding of public education and the affect of these initiatives on children’s learning experience in the classroom…I have seen with my own eyes, the devastating affect data driven, Pavlovian based, standardized learning experiences have on children’s psycho-emotional well being.
 
 

Honor the Treaties

Honor the Treaties is an organization dedicated to amplifying the voices of Indigenous communities through art and advocacy. We do that by funding collaborations between Native artists and Native advocacy groups so that their messages can reach a wider audience. This is not a closed chapter in history. This is a living issue.
You can make it visible.
You can teach it.
You can join the fight.
 
 

Just Seeds Artists Cooperative

“Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative is a decentralized network of 24 artists committed to making print and design work that reflects a radical social, environmental, and political stance. With members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds operates both as a unified collaboration of similarly minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods. We believe in the transformative power of personal expression in concert with collective action. To this end, we produce collective portfolios, contribute graphics to grassroots struggles for justice, work collaboratively both in- and outside the co-op, build large sculptural installations in galleries, and wheatpaste on the streets – all while offering each other daily support as allies and friends.
 
 

Missing Peace Art Space

The Missing Peace Art Space is a non profit organization operating under the 501c3 organizational structure of the Unitarian Fellowship for World Peace. The mission of the Missing Peace Art Space is to provide an artistic forum for exploring issues of peace and violence in a tolerant, non-commercial environment. In the world’s current polarized environment it is important to recognize that the concepts of “truth” and “being right” can be ideas that drive us apart. Often a “truth” may be only as true as the moment or place that it is experienced in. Art is an excellent medium for allowing us to experience that moment.
 
 

Occupy The Stage

Occupy the Stage is a branch of Occupy NOLA that is dedicated to artists and artisans. We are committed to the belief that the arts and skilled trades are sacred. They belong to the people and are immune to censorship, gentrification, taxation or corporate consolidation. These are the basic necessities for civilization and are considered incorruptible.
 
 

Radical Art Initiative

Radical Art Initiative was founded in Brooklyn, NY in Spring of 2008 as a response to the impending economic crisis. The idea of implementing art to alert the public to the real causes behind the catastrophe took on shape in various Street Art projects through 2009-2010. With the birth of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Sept.17, 2011, RAI found a new field of operation creating signs and informative visuals. RAI produced Street Theater and Performances with the declared purpose of exposing the evil intentions of the corporatocracy through 2012. Recently the general paradigm shift has led away from the criticism of the system to formulating a positive vision for the future.
 
 

Safe Streets Arts Foundation

Safe Streets Arts Foundation (division of the Prisons Foundation) provides support for imprisoned artists by exhibiting and selling their works, to imprisoned writers by publishing their books, and to imprisoned playwrights and musicians by performing their works at the Kennedy Center. All services free. Write or visit our website for more information.
Safe Streets Arts Foundation, 2512 Virginia Ave NW, #58043, Washington, DC 20037.
 
 

WEAD: Women Environmental Artists Directory

Focusing on women’s unique perspectives, we collaborate internationally to further the field and understanding of ecological and social justice art. Information regarding the ecoart and social justice art fields and international networking among artists working with ecological and social justice issues. We further the fields of, and the understanding of environmental and social justice art.