( 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/

On December 17th, we traveled to Washington, DC to collaborate with the Endangered Species Coalition.  The 17th marked the end of the public comment period around the proposed delisting of the Gray Wolf under the Endangered Species Act.  We Projected on the Department of Interior that we all #standforwolves.

Photos from the Endangered Species Coalition

On December 3rd, we teamed up with the NYC Anarchist group In Our Hearts and went to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where Jeremy Hammond is currently being held. We projected messages of solidarity for Jeremy + Anonymous, sang and danced, banged on drums, blew horns and whistles, sending waves of sound and beams of light through cell windows. Faces appeared in the windows and lights flickered on and off as a sign that they were hearing and seeing our love.

Jeremy is 28 years old and was just sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for hacking under the banner of “Anonymous”. Read more about Jeremy and his hacktivism here: http://freejeremy.net/

Photos by Kyle Depew

In the dark of the night of November 18th, 2013 the historic NYC-based graffiti art mecca 5 Pointz was whitewashed by developers in an attempt to destroy the possibility of the building being legally preserved due to the cultural value of the art on it’s walls; the artists were currently in court with the developers fighting for protection on these grounds.  Precious spray art from countless world-renowned artists was destroyed.  A candlelight vigil was held the next evening and we came with the People’s Pad to allow the artists to legally tag the building one last time.

Photos by Lucky Tran and Kyle Depew