Creative Activism - The Art of the Prank

December 19, 2025

The Second Coming is on ICE

“The role of public art is to raise awareness.” – Reverend Karen Ristine

“Anti-ICE Nativities Take a Stand Against Trump’s Cruelty,” by Emma Cieslik, Hyperallergic, December 9, 2025.

Despite pushback from right-wing leaders, nativity scenes with a humanitarian message are spreading across the country.

This past Friday, December 5, the Archdiocese of Boston asked St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, to remove its nativity scene. The crèche features the shepherds and the Wise Men, but no Holy Family — no Jesus, Mary, or Joseph. In their place is a sign that reads: “ICE WAS HERE.”

A text below includes the number for the LUCE defense hotline, run by the Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, which monitors and confirms Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. Read the whole article here.

December 19, 2025

Religious Iconography as Protest Art

Reminiscent of Joey Skaggs’ Vietnamese Christmas Nativity Burning, Central Park, 1968

“Zip-Tied Baby Jesus Guarded by ICE Agents in Illinois Church Nativity Scene,” by TMZ Staff, TMZ, December 4, 2025.

No Room at the Inn, or the Border!!! Baby Jesus Tied Up in Church Nativity Manger.

If Jesus comes to the U.S., he’d better have a valid visa … at least that’s the worry of an Illinois church that’s installed a controversial Nativity scene depicting the baby messiah zip-tied in a manger.

Lake Street Church of Evanston — just north of Chicago — reimagined the Nativity with masked centurions wearing green vests labeled “ICE” surrounding the Holy Family. Mother Mary and Joseph wear respirator masks to shield themselves from tear gas, according to the church. Read the whole article here.

December 12, 2025

Guerrilla of My Dreams

It’s about time…

“Learn ‘How to Be a Guerrilla Girl’ at The Getty,” by Beverly Press, November 26, 2025.

Coinciding with the Guerrilla Girls’ 40th anniversary, “How to Be a Guerrilla Girl,” on view at the Getty through April 12, 2026, offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look into the inner workings of the iconic feminist art collective.

Drawing from the Getty Research Institute’s remarkable Guerrilla Girls archive, the exhibition highlights the strategies – anonymity, data gathering, protest actions, culture jamming and grassroots distribution – that have defined the group’s groundbreaking practice since the mid-1980s.

The Guerrilla Girls have created a newly-commissioned work for the exhibition that explores the Getty’s own collection of European painting and sculpture. Using comic strip style speech bubbles, they reimagine the voices of women represented in these artworks through a twenty-first century lens. The commission exposes deeply rooted biases in the representation of women in Guerilla Girls characteristic witty style. Read the whole article here.

October 6, 2025

Censoring Art

It’s too close to the truth to be allowed to exist.

“Michelangelo to Banksy: The controversial artworks that fell foul of the law – and were erased,” by Kelly Grovier, BBC, September 13, 2025.

Prefiguring Banksy’s latest Royal Courts of Justice mural depicting a judge attacking a protester, are centuries of art history where works have been censored or edited.

It could hardly be more brutal in its depiction of the administration of judicial might: a judge, arm raised, wielding a makeshift weapon, delivers his ruling, blow by blow, on the body of the accused, who lies at his feet. No, I’m not talking about Banksy’s recent (and rapidly erased) mural, which the street artist sprayed onto the side of the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 7 September. Banksy’s work, which satirically depicted an English judge in traditional wig and gown, pummelling a prone protester with his gavel as splatters of blood became the very message emblazoned on the blank placard that the protester carried, was partially eradicated by authorities three days later.

Read the whole article here.

September 1, 2025

Joey Skaggs interviewed by Mark Borkowski about creative dissent on BBC Radio 4

OUTRAGE INC, an audio documentary by Mark Borkowski, aired on BBC Radio 4, August 23, 2025:

“From Suffragette arsonists to soup on sunflowers – why the stunt still matters.

Legendary publicist Mark Borkowski takes a no-prisoners look at the history of the protest stunt – the noisy, theatrical interventions that have rattled the establishment for over a century.

With fascinating examples from the BBC archive and interviews with Led By Donkeys, The Centre for Political Beauty, Joey Skaggs, The Yes Men, veteran activist Jamie Kelsey Fry and Clare Farrell from XR.”