Send Protest - a participatory art project
by Costantino Ciervo and Team
Why create a "Send Protest" app with an online picture archive? Do we need a digital visual memory of the worldwide protest and people’s outrage at social injustice? And how can one avoid manipulation and censorship? What makes us different to the existing social networks? Can we use modern technologies in a sensible way and make a contribution to society through empathy and creativity? We think we can.
Using the app „Send Protest“, you can record (photo or video) something you find unfair or unacceptable any time and anywhere.
You can then exhibit these pictures with your comments in exhibition spaces, public spaces or on the internet.
1) By using this app, you are participating in an art project that runs for an unlimited period.
2) The app is easy to use. Install it in order to document and publicly present unfair or unacceptable circumstances that negatively affect the common welfare.
3) You will need a smartphone with a photo/video function, GPS and connection to the Internet. The data you document and send (image/text) will be collected in an archive on www.sendprotest.com and presented to the public either immediately or following a short time delay as part of international exhibitions.
4) The archive that also contains your images can be accessed anytime without registration at: www.sendprotest.com.
You can also subscribe to a newsletter containing information about exhibitions that are part of the project.
5) You can record data, photos or videos of max. 30 seconds in length and send them in with an accompanying comment up to 250 characters.
6) Content: The unfair or unacceptable circumstances might have to do with objects, places, architecture or the environment. For example: the state of public infrastructure, the deterioration of important buildings like schools or hospitals, gentrification processes, refurbishment measures, the privatisation of public spaces, violations of climate protection or environmental protection, disfigurement in the form of architecture (disastrous buildings, ground sealing) in urban or rural settings. Or your entry might deal with cases of personal discrimination (racist, sexist, religious bigotry, social discrimination, attacks on the disabled, etc.), alienation, poverty, economic inequality or social marginalisation.
You can choose between 9 categories:
-Pollution of nature and the environment
-Violations of human dignity
-Racism
-Sexism
-Urban, architectural disasters
-Documentation of public demonstrations or protest activities
-Statements by individuals
-Control/surveillance – restrictions to freedom
-Others
7) Please respect peoples personal rights and only take photographs with their permission.
8) Act responsibly (you are responsible for your pictures), show face and send your protest.
9) We cannot leave protest in the hands of (right-wing) populists – share your indignation and fight for an open, free and democratic society where real solidarity among people exists.
10) The Send Protest transnational online archive with its continuously growing picture database is a to date unique memory for critical thought and is available to the public as an open archive.
11) Send Protest is completely free of advertising and is not commercial. We do not collect any data and the app...
…serves to contribute with impact towards an open, just and environmentally-friendly society where solidarity is important.
…enables active people worldwide to take a stand against racism, sexism, right-wing populism, anti-Semitism or social injustice.
…encourages people to look at things instead of looking away.
…enables its users - unlike profit-oriented social networks and organisations that use your data to make money, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram – to photograph or video real situations that make them angry and document them in the archive.
…excludes so-called “fake news” or visual manipulations.