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(reblog from 2023) The project, Middle Finger, uses the recognizable image of Ai’s hand overlaid on Google Maps street views so that users around the world can exercise the power of reinserting individuality anywhere they want.

“We often forget that we have a middle finger,” Ai said about this project and his longstanding Study of Perspective photograph series. “Or even if we know we have a middle finger, we misuse it. I think it’s good to remember that this part of your body can point to something — an institution, or someone that resembles a power — to let them know, and let yourself know, that you exist.”

https://middlefinger.avantarte.com/archive/OrVjZheFaXZxKGDjnMYV

WHAT HAPPENED in 2023?

Flipping the bird at the largest Confederate monument, Stone Mountain in Georgia (edit Valentina Di Liscia/Hyperallergic)

• A new collaboration between Ai Weiwei and Avant Arte invites users to flip the bird anywhere on Google Maps. 

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  Following President Joe Biden’s approval of the Willow Project, flipping off the White House has been done to death and is quite frankly low-hanging fruit, so I’m sending my middle finger over to the ConocoPhillips Alaska subsidiary headquarters in Anchorage, Alaska. For those who are out of the loop, the Willow Project is an enormous oil drilling endeavor that would be developed and executed through the coming decades in the National Petroleum Reserve above the Arctic Circle in northern Alaska.  While Alaskans from both parties lauded Biden’s approval and look forward to an enriched economy and new job opportunities, climate activists from the lower 48 decried the decision as directly conflicting with the Biden-Harris administration’s position on climate change and green energy sourcing and are concerned with the ramifications on Alaskan wildlife. via 

  ABOVE 👆The Stone Mountain Monument off of Robert E. Lee Blvd in Stone Mountain, Georgia, is the last to get our middle finger, but certainly not the least.  Completed in 1972, the 90-foot carving depicts Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, on the back of a horse. In a recent bid to take down monuments that celebrate oppression and genocide across the nation, Stone Mountain stands out in its marked permanence as the country’s (and the world’s) largest Confederate monument. The carving will always be associated with the genocide of the Indigenous populations in the area and the place of rebirth for the Georgia branch of the KKK. 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕