( click on the photo above for slideshow )

We teamed up with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) to bring the “Wheel of Justice” to Albany, NY.  Local New Yorkers showed up to take a spin of the wheel projected onto the wall of a warehouse, The Egg, and the justice building using a Wii remote control. With each spin, they learned about the true stories of people who’ve experienced NY’s broken public defense system. They also took action by signing a letter to Governor Cuomo and other state leaders demanding that they fix the system. Find out more at www.wojny.org

Photos by Kyle Depew

( click on the photo above for slideshow )

We went out the other night to get people excited about #FloodWallStreet, a day of massive, coordinated direct actions against climate profiteers taking place in lower Manhattan on September 22nd. 

In financial and political centers around the world - flood, blockade, sit-in, and shut down the institutions that are profiting from the climate crisis.  Wear BLUE!  More info on their website…


http://www.floodwallstreet.net

( click on the photo above for slideshow )

On September 12th, The Illuminator joined over a hundred climate activists from 350.org and beyond to help create a beautiful, people-powered spectacle of excitement and hope under the Brooklyn Bridge. Stay tuned for the video!

http://peoplesclimate.org

Projecting onto the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the Gala Opening of “Koch Plaza.”  The Koch brothers fund climate denialism.  Let’s deny them the social legitimacy they so desperately crave! This is the only photo of the action, as our crew was quickly arrested and had their projector seized as a result of breaking up the dinner party.
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Projecting onto the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the Gala Opening of “Koch Plaza.”  The Koch brothers fund climate denialism.  Let’s deny them the social legitimacy they so desperately crave!

This is the only photo of the action, as our crew was quickly arrested and had their projector seized as a result of breaking up the dinner party.

( click on the photo above for slideshow )

To shed light on a controversial law prohibiting protests with more than 50 people in the wake of the student movement in Québec, the Illuminator Art Collective traveled to Montréal to engage with student activsts in a collaborative urban intervention project. We are here to honor the courageous students who exemplified direct democracy as well as herald a warning to world: If such anti-democratic laws can be enforced in a place like Québec, it can happen anywhere.

Photo by Kyle Depew

( click on the photo above for slideshow )

Last night, we projected alongside DREAM Act activists organized by the New york State Youth Leadership Council, an undocumented youth-lead nonprofit organization. Governor Cuomo signs the the city budget in just two weeks and we wanted urge him to make sure that the DREAM Act is included.

Find out more info on the New york State Youth Leadership Council here: http://www.nysylc.org

Photos by Kyle Depew

From April 14-16, The Illuminator was out and about in Washington DC, visiting the Department of Interior, to the Department of Commerce, and the EPA.  We were standing in solidarity with water warriors from Oceana, to remind the world that another disaster like the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill is inevitable if we keep going with extreme extraction methods.  It’s time to #stopthedrill.

At 10:00 pm on March 24th 2014, members of Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.) joined by the OWS Illuminator occupied the facade of Guggenheim Museum in Uptown Manhattan for over 40 minutes. G.U.L.F. rebranded the Guggenheim’s flagship museum in protest of complicity at the ill-treatment and economic exploitation of migrant workers in Abu Dhabi who are beginning to build the new Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim on  Saadiyat (aka ‘Island of Happiness’. G.U.L.F.’s act of messaging solidarity follows recent reports from Human Rights Watch, as well as investigative findings from members of the Gulf Labor Coalition (some of whom overlap with G.U.L.F.) who have just returned from a fact-finding mission in Abu Dhabi where where they visited several worker camps and spoke with workers. They confirmed a reality that is the opposite of happy: multiple labor violations, generated by a system built on human suffering and debt bondage.

The Illuminator teamed up with Save NYPL to fight back against plans to gut the 42nd Street branch of New York Public Library. From their website: “The Committee to Save the NYPL calls for a halt to the Central Library Plan (CLP) until an independent agency can conduct a detailed cost analysis. This analysis should also evaluate the costs of an alternative proposal suggested by both Huxtable and Kimmelman that the 42nd Street building be left intact and attention directed instead to a renovation of the Mid-Manhattan building. As Kimmelman writes, “A new Mid-Manhattan branch should cost a fraction of gutting the stacks and could produce much better architecture.”

http://www.savenypl.org/