Urban Forest Project

My friend and fellow socially conscious designer Mark Randall of World Studio/World Studio Foundation, talks about his Urban Forest Project:

News Roundup

A bunch of recent-ish stories I've been meaning to post for a while...

Ode Magazine:

The ins and outs of Eco-Tourism

An overview of the friendlier, funnier "New Activism"

Earth-Friendly Fast-Food?

Christian Science Monitor:

Using bikes instead of trucks for transport.

Why organic farming is good for Africa

"Just how 'green' is that shirt?"

Shopdropping: Call for Entries Reminder

A reminder from Ryan at Shopdropping.net, you have until April 1st to participate in their Greeting Card call for entries:

SHOPDROPPING.NET is now calling on artists, designers, media makers, and creative folks to purchase greeting cards and alter them in any way they see fit. Any form of commercial card, from wedding to graduation to birthday to bereavement, is eligible. But clever and witty will be given preference over easy and distasteful.

Please submit JPEG reproductions of the altered greeting cards to submissions _AT _shopdropping.net with GREETINGS as the subject line.

All files must be sized to 1024 x 768 at 72 dpi. Each altered card must include the text "www.shopdropping.net" somewhere in the new design. It can be discreet, on the back of the card, and unobtrusive but it must be present.When submitting the cover and inside of the same card please indicate this clearly in the file titles (for example "cover.jpg", "page2.jpg").

The deadline for submissions is April 1st 2008.

Once all of the digital reproductions have been submitted, selected artists will be given the address of a fellow participant to swap cards with. The cards will then be shopdropped back into circulation and the digital reproductions will be featured on SHOPDROPPING.NET. Please do not submit digital files if you do not intend to follow through with the act of shopdropping a fellow participant's work. The digital reproductions are a means to select and document the artworks, but do not replace the act of shopdropping the originals into unsuspecting stores.

83 Ways To Change The World in Sweden

Take Action: 83 Ways To Change The World is the current exhibition at the Museum of World Culture, in Gothenburg, Sweden. If you're not in the area, you can get a preview of the exhibit, which features work that comes from the intersection of art and politics (including the seed guns created by Christopher Humes and I), HERE.

Everything's Cool

Everything's Cool is a documentary about responding to the global warming naysayers...

Socially Conscious T-Shirts

Why wear a shirt with a celebrity on it when you can have Makenna Gigliari from Bradford, Ontario or Franka Tomic from Korkula, Croatia? Joy Apparel is an intriguing socially conscious company with the goal of promoting peace & equality through introducing normal people from around the world...by putting their faces on T-shirts! If you buy a shirt you can submit your own face and join in the fun. Find out more on their site.

Thanks Jo!

Shopdropping: Two Calls for Entries

The folks at Shopdropping.net have 2 calls for entries for activist-artists:

Call 1:
SHOPDROPPING.NET is now calling on artists, designers, media makers, and creative folks to purchase greeting cards and alter them in any way they see fit. Any form of commercial card, from wedding to graduation to birthday to bereavement, is eligible. But clever and witty will be given preference over easy and distasteful.

Please submit JPEG reproductions of the altered greeting cards to "submissions" AT "shopdropping.net" with GREETINGS as the subject line.

All files must be sized to 1024 x 768 at 72 dpi. Each altered card must include the text "www.shopdropping.net" somewhere in the new design. It can be discreet, on the back of the card, and unobtrusive but it must be present.When submitting the cover and inside of the same card please indicate this clearly in the file titles (for example "cover.jpg", "page2.jpg").

The deadline for submissions is April 1st 2008.

Once all of the digital reproductions have been submitted, selected artists will be given the address of a fellow participant to swap cards with. The cards will then be shopdropped back into circulation and the digital reproductions will be featured on SHOPDROPPING.NET. Please do not submit digital files if you do not intend to follow through with the act of shopdropping a fellow participant's work. The digital reproductions are a means to select and document the artworks, but do not replace the act of shopdropping the originals into unsuspecting stores.


Call 2:
SHOPDROPPING.NET is currently seeking 20 artists aged 20-29 to feature and interview for an upcoming book. SHOPDROPPING.NET presents 20/20 will profile each artist and their work and copies of the limited edition book will be shopdropped into bookstores throughout the world.

In the spirit of shopdropping, we are seeking artists who are exploring new forms and pushing boundaries within their field. Bands and musicians with hard to define genres, Internet filmmakers and compulsive bloggers, curators and gallerists working out of their homes, post-vinyl dj's and digital vj's, actors and writers working outside of film, theater, and television, artist collectives, culture jammers, and other hard-to-define creative minds are in demand.

To be considered for this project or to nominate someone you feel fits the bill please submit work samples via web link to: "submissions" AT "shopdropping.net" with 20/20 as the subject line.

DO NOT send jpgs, mp3s, or other file types directly. Links only please. There is no deadline for this project as of yet.

Please repost this information and pass it along to anyone who may be interested.

For additional information please see:
http://www.shopdropping.net

Body of War

Body of War is a new documentary about what happens to a soldier who returns home paralyzed after fighting in Iraq...




Thanks Melinda!

News Roundup

Some more recent articles worth reading in the Christian Science Monitor:

New Alternative Fuel: Chocolate!

Is Bioplastic a Viable Alternative to "Paper or Plastic"?

Person-To-Person Lending: Internet Based Microloans Helping Internationally.

Design Rebels 2007: RISE-NOW

Students in my Fall 2007 Design Rebels class on socially conscious design created two terrific community based projects as their final assignments.

The first is RISE-NOW a poster/web campaign to educate on the issues of sexual assault and domestic violence. Read more about it in my article on Osocio HERE.

I'll post about the 2nd project CHOMP, a healthy living program for middle school students, when the finished version is online.

My Favorite Pen

I teach a class on socially conscious design and as a way of demonstrating the power of design to explain complicated issues I use a pen as a prop. It's not just any pen though, it's one designed by Stefan Sagmeister for the community action group TrueMajority.org as a means of demonstrating the disproportionate spending on the U.S. military in comparison to our "enemies". The reverse shows how a fraction of that budget could be used to fully support several other government programs that have continual underfunding problems. To buy your own pens and other well designed politically minded goodies check out the TrueMajorityShop.

Parsons Opens Socially Conscious Game Lab

Parsons The New School for Design in New York City has just launched a new research lab focused on creating video games centered around educating on social issues. The New School of Design PETlab is a partnership with the non-profit Games for Change. From their press release:

The initiative was made possible by a $450,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as part of the foundation’s digital media and learning initiative established in 2006 to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life.

In its first year, PETLab will work with Microsoft’s Xbox development platform and MTV’s Think.MTV.com youth-focused online activist community on the development of both learning tools and digital games that explore social issues.

Read more in the AP article.

Spotted In Hawaii part II: Protect The Cute Fish

I've seen warnings about dumping spray painted over sewer drains in several cities, but I've never seen one etched in stone! Kudos to the folks in Honolulu's Chinatown for going the extra mile to protect the ocean.

The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff, created by folks at Free Range Studios, is an entertaining 20 minute lecture on consumption by Annie Leonard, who spent 10 years studying where stuff comes from and where it goes. Leonard explains the problems of a linear production system in clear language with simple graphics that make the issues easy to understand, now if only it reaches beyond the already informed audiences that will most likely encounter it first. Watch or download it from the resource filled website created by HERE.

Climate Changed Spain

Greenpeace Spain has released a new book aimed at encouraging action on climate change. Photoclima by Pedro Armestre and Mario Gómez shows images of Spanish locations as they might look affected by extreme weather changes.

via The Guardian
Thanks Phil!

Miss Landmine 2008

The Miss Landmine competition in Angola is a simultaneous protest against the use of deadly landmines and a celebration of a broader view of beauty. Created by Norwegian artist Morten Traavik the competition will culminate in a live event on April, 4 2008. You can read about the candidates and vote for a winner on the Miss Landmine site.

via Boing Boing

What Would Jesus Buy?

Just in time for the holidays, What Would Jesus Buy is a documentary about Reverand Billy's radical anti-consumerism campaign from Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me fame...


via Word Soup

Illegal Signs

The goal of IllagalSigns.Ca is to "destroying illegal billboards with the rule of law" and they seem to be having an effect, at least in Toronto, Canada. Here they explain their raison d'etre:

Our Streets are where civic capital is created. Illegal billboards monetize our civic capital, under no colour of right, by treating citizens as consumers first. Illegal billboards commodify what is unique about our neighbourhoods by turning our Streets into pages of a mass-market magazine, without regard to the law. Join us as we fight to legalize and democratize Toronto’s visual environment. Join us as we fight to Reclaim the Streets.

See a map of illegal billboards, and find out what's being done about them on their site HERE.

via Anti-Advertising Agency

Vote for an Ecospot

You have until November 9th to vote on Current's contest for creating a new environmental PSA: ":60 Seconds To Save The Earth." Celebrity judges whittled the entries down to 20 semi-finalists and now the final choice is up to you. Watch the entries and make your choice (after logging in) HERE.

P.S. My friend Leah made the one titled "I did noth'N" so I would be remiss if I didn't say she would very much appreciate your vote!

Free Rice

FreeRice adds a new twist to the one-click activism sites like The Breast Cancer Site. Not only does it allow you to donate rice to the United Nations World Food Programme, but it's also a vocabulary improvement game. Each word you get right is equivalent to 10 grains of donated rice (paid for by advertisers on the site). The site is a project of Poverty.com.

Thanks Nev!

Call for Entries: Repressed III socially conscious art

T.O.W.A.R. and Gallery 5 in Richmond, VA are once again looking for socially conscious art submissions for their upcoming exhibition & workshop series Repressed III:

In our contemporary landscape, the irony that we find ourselves immersed in offers little remorse. Political constructs promise to act within the best interest of the people that they serve. We trust them to protect us from insufficient leadership and to be more informed than the general public.

But we know better.

To some degree, we remain conscious of corruption lurking just below the surface. Our sense of social altruism becomes hindered by perceived incapacity. But what resources exist for igniting these socioeconomic changes and how do we utilize them?

For many people, the intellectual realm is both exclusive and censorious. In a culture that is driven by consumerist agenda and billboard declaration, what better way to reach the masses than through the visual landscape of public domain? But is there ever a curiosity as to why most public art is illegal? It isn’t just an eyesore to gentrifiers, business & home owner associations, politicians and tourists.

It's a threat.

The ills of society are being reflected upon by a handful of demonstrators, who do so as visual street poets, permeating our cities' public spaces. These visual landmarks become nodes of free thought. Their philosophies are conveyed in passing. When they are censored, something is robbed from our consciousness.

Others spend their time indoors knowing that their passions are being marginalized; yet they still produce work. Their contributions activate the social evolution of humankind. But without opportunity, these voices become faint whispers. They exist only as the dormant catalysts of revolution. This group of disenfranchised artists/activists know that they must not stop creating because, like sharks, movements must be perpetually in motion or they fade away.

We are asking you to participate in this dialogue as witness and/or dissenter.

In collaboration with T.O.W.A.R., Gallery5 will host Repressed 3, a show dedicated to socially conscious works. This event will take place March 7th, 2008 and will be the precursor to a workshop series. Gallery5 is currently seeking workshop proposals, performers, artists, and volunteers.

Repressed III is being held in conjunction with: The 2008 Southern Graphics Council Conference.

Entry Requirements
1.) All works must be submitted for approval by February 4th. After acceptance, works must be on location by February 26. Space is limited, please submit works early.
2.) Works submitted should contribute socially or philosophically to cultural evolution. Historical propaganda artifacts also accepted.
3.) Artists are responsible for transportation of works. Some exceptions may apply.
4.) Both 2D and 3D works will be accepted.
5.) Works must be matted, mounted and/or framed and ready to be hung, unless intended to be wheatpasted.
6.) All works must be properly labeled with name, date, medium and suggested price.
For those with original multiples there is a space to display and sell prints. Gallery5 will take 35% of these sales to benefit its building, Steamer Company no5, Virginia’s oldest Fire Station.
Please put “Repressed” in the subject line of submission emails. gallery5_AT_ gallery5arts.org or info_AT_thereoncewasarebellion.org.

Download the entry packet PDF with submission form HERE.

How to Shut Down McDonald's

Steve Lambert of the Anti Advertising Agency "shut down" all the McDonalds in Manhattan on September 15th. Find out the details HERE and check out this press conference featuring "Ronald McDonald" explaining his actions...



via StayFree!

Used Book Activism

Better World offers bookworms an opportunity for easy do-goodery. Buying used books through the web based retailer funds a variety of international literacy programs. The only downside is they don't say how much of what they donate from sales, but their parent organization Better World Books seems to have a decent reputation. Find out more here.

Thanks Mim!

Coffee Bikes

Good magazine tells the story of how a Portland coffee roaster helps coffee growers in Rawanda with bicycles...



Thanks Vickie!

King Corn Trailer

King Corn looks like it will be an excellent companion to the book Omnivore's Dilemma. Watch the trailer here...



Thanks Chris!

Flying Spaghetti Monster Billboard in Maryland

While I'm generally not a fan of billboards there are a few I admire, including this one on the side of a house in Baltimore, Maryland featuring the infamous response to creationists in Kansas: the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Get the story behind the billboard at the Baltimore Sun.

Thanks Mica!

Nine Inch Nails hammers another nail in the corporate music industry coffin

Following on the heals of Radiohead's announcement to leave their label and offer their latest album to fans at a price of their choice, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails announced his own departure from his label on October 8th.
Now Reznor is offering a similar deal to fans on the new album by Saul Williams that he produced. William's album Niggy Tardust will be available November 1st for $5 (if you click a button that says "I want to directly support the artists involved in the creation of this music") or Free (if you click a button that says "I'm not concerned about that.I just want the music"). Unlike Radiohead's release, however this downloads will be in 2 different MP3 formats as well as in lossless FLAC! Find out more here.

Lessig on Corruption

Writer/Professor Lawrence Lessig explains on Danish TV why he's switched his focus from copyright issues to the issue of government corruption...




Thanks Russ!

Kleenex Strikes Out

In a follow up to their previous hijacking of a Kleenex commercial in NYC the folks at Greenpeace follow the film crew to Chicago as part of their Kleerkut campaign to encourage Kimberly-Clark to stop using old growth forest trees in their paper products...

Work It Out

Dancer/Choreographer Bill Shannon developed a unique performance style in response to his bilateral hip deformity that requires the use of crutches. His work challenges stereotypes about disability and is also just plain cool. Check him out in this recent Rjd2 video...

Give One, Get One

If you've been ogling the cute little affordable computers developed for the One Laptop Per Child Project, you've now got a rare opportunity to get your own (without having to be a needy child in a developing nation). Starting November 12th if you donate $399 to the project one laptop will be sent to a child in need and one will be sent to your child. Find out the details HERE.

Shock Resistance

I just can't get enough of Naomi Klein. She recently worked with filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón to create a short film which explains the basic premise of her new book The Shock Doctrine.
Not only is it visually powerful and beautifully executed but it ends with a hopeful message.

Tearing down Guantanamo...one pixel at a time.

Amnesty International is collecting signatures for a petition urging the closing Guantanmo Bay using an interface that allows an image of the prison to be dismantled on pixel at a time (for a total of 500,000 pixels. Find out more and remove your own pixel at: TearItDown.org.

Henry Rollins' Ember of Rage

Henry Rollins talking in Israel about his experiences volunteering with the USO...



via Glumbert

Thanks Melinda!

Guerrilla Bag Activism

Morsbags is a UK based group that asks regular folks to form subversive activist "pods" to make and distribute...shopping bags! They provide a basic how-to for making a standard cloth bag, which you are then encouraged to distribute for free to shoppers at local stores as an alternative to using disposable grocery bags.

Thanks Mim!

Planting Peace

Planting Peace is a handy new resource from the folks at the Organic Consumers Association. It collects news stories about the intersection of the anti-war, environmental, and organic activist communities in an attempt to forge a better alliance between the groups.

Service-Learning: Design Rebels

The course I teach on socially conscious design at Virginia Commonwealth University, Design Rebels, is designated as a Service-Learning class, which means the students are required to have a level of direct community engagement as part of their education. Last year the class was featured in a presentation at the annual Service-Learning conference. A short video from that presentation (which includes an interview with me about Design Rebels) can now be seen online HERE.

How The Food Industry Is Deceiving You

The first of a five-part series (that appears to be from 2004) called "How The Food Industry Is Deceiving You" created by Peter Jennings...



Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

via Mercola.com

Read A !#&% Book!

This is the controversial parody PSA rap video "Read A Book" which has been running on BET recently... NOTE: This is really, really not work safe (language-wise).

Gimme Shelter: NYC November 13

New York based animal rights group Rational Animal is having their annual concert, Gimme Shelter: Rock & Rescue NYC, on November 13th. The poster was designed by Andrea Purcigliotti and her partner Tony Barber...who just happens to be the bassist from the Buzzcocks! If last year's line-up is any indication it should be a killer show. Tickets and details should be available on their site in the next few weeks.

Anita Roddick 1942-2007

Say what you will about the Body Shop, but there is no denying that the store's founder Dame Anita Roddick was a pioneer in the world of socially conscious busi