One year after the unprecedented success of global music project Playing for Change: Songs Around the World, the ensuing phenomenon is captured in a live concert film and behind-the-scenes tour documentary.
Playing for Change Live features performances from around the world, starring the disparate musical artists who were initially brought together by PFC founder Mark Johnson in his quest to unite local and street musicians from far-ranging cultures. Including guest appearances from Ziggy Marley, Toots Hibbert, and Keb’ Mo’, the DVD is supplemented by a 10-track live CD, as well the additional 90-minute feature “On the Road with the PFC Band.”
Featuring contributions from Mos Def, Bat for Lashes, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Norah Jones, charity compilation Raise Hope for Congo aims to raise awareness of the plight of abused Congolese women and children.
Curated by KCRW radio staple Nic Harcourt, the album includes 18 tracks from a diverse range of artists, with all proceeds going toward efforts to alleviate the suffering caused by the demand for conflict minerals in the African nation. Raise Hope for Congo is an initiative of Enough, a charity project with the goal of putting a stop to genocide and human-rights violations.
Everyone likes animals. At least, we like looking at pictures of them. In a new book from National Geographic photographer Joe Sartore, Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species, the nation’s most vulnerable plants and animals are put on display (69 of them, to be exact). The book is a collection from Sartore’s 20 years traveling across the country, capturing photographs of creatures disappearing from America’s landscape. It’s worth noting that one of the featured animals — the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit — actually went extinct while the book was being made.
Online exhibition What Would You Buy with $50? features more than 150 works by East African villagers and students from the Circle of Peace School in Uganda, where that price covers a year’s tuition.
The project is the brainchild of artist Jiashan Wu and Joyce Meng, CEO of the volunteer-based online organization Givology. On a recent volunteer mission, they asked the local kids to draw what they would buy with $50, and now each drawing is being sold to help provide continuing education for students at the school.
Global Inheritance is a growing network of progressive-minded citizens with well-developed artistic sides, who plan to save the world through art and music. Seriously.
The group is best known for its TRASHed: Art of Recycling campaign, in which artists transform waste bins into functional, portable galleries — a Coachella staple now expanding to Miami’s Ultra Festival and into Argentina. But there’s much more to the story — from LA’s recent (and Portland’s imminent) Environmentaland awareness pop-ups to human-powered DJ tents. Keep up — and do your part — via the Global Inheritance website.
“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed.” — President Rene Preval of Haiti
As Preval noted, Haiti’s rebuilding efforts in the wake of January’s 7.0 earthquake won’t be complete without a manifold approach, as the entire infrastructure of the nation and its capital, Port-au-Prince, has crumbled under thousands of tons of rubble. The shelter issue is pressing, however: 3,000 people sleeping on a school soccer field, machete fights over tents, an estimated 1 million people displaced. So how are architects responding to an immediate humanitarian crisis? They are problem solvers, after all.
Organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, traveling exhibition Actions: What You Can Do with the City proposes 99 clever ways to revamp urban living and prompt positive change on your home turf.
The diverse “actions” encompass guerrilla gardening, savvy reuse of vacant spaces, clandestine civic improvements, and more playful ideas, such as creating temporary parks in metered parking spots. The best part is, it’s not just theoretical: most of the projects have been brought to life before in cities ranging from Tokyo to Toronto.
Artist and photographer Chris Jordan examines the bad habits of human consumption with work that depicts trash in all its incarnations.
From a distance, his collections of bottle caps, bullets, or Barbie parts are pleasantly abstract, though carefully orchestrated in their large-scale, long-zoom formats. As a body of work, Jordan’s photographs and multimedia pieces — combining documentary with staged production — reveal stunning data about the accumulation of stuff, wrapping social commentary in an attractive packaging.
Each September, charity: water asks people to request donations as birthday gifts, helping to build wells in impoverished countries.
For 2009, the organization’s Born in September campaign syncs with the launch of mycharity: water, a site that lets you create your own campaign page to raise money for the group’s humanitarian efforts. If it’s your birthday, get people to donate your age in dollars; if not, engage in any fundraising effort of your choice. Either way, you’ll see actual evidence of the difference you’re making via photos and GPS data. Read More »
, the nation’s most vulnerable plants and animals are put on display (69 of them, to be exact). The book is a collection from Sartore’s 20 years traveling across the country, capturing photographs of creatures disappearing from America’s landscape. It’s worth noting that one of the featured animals — the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit — actually went extinct while the book was being made.
