The whole world is watching Hong Kong, where a battle is playing out in the streets between authorities and citizens protesting China’s encroachment on their independence. It started in June in response to a proposed amendment of an extradition bill that would make it easier for Hong Kong citizens to be sent to mainland China, and has escalated as authorities refuse to make concessions. Now, police in riot gear are marching into crowds of masked protestors with tear gas and water cannons.

Protesters escaping PolyU by rope from a footbridge to nearby volunteer motorcyclists
by inHongKong

In an effort to retain control of Hong Kong Polytechnic University (and the rest of the city), the protesters began crafting gear of their own: improvised catapults, slingshots and barricades. They’re also using encrypted messaging apps to coordinate daring escapes from police, like descending by rope from a footbridge to be picked up by riders on motorcycles below.

On r/HongKong, Redditors are posting some of these inventions alongside updates from within the semi-autonomous city. Many of them are incredibly simple yet effective, like gluing bricks to the streets or driving nails through sections of garden hose.

Students from the University of Hong Kong building brick walls to defend themselves from the police.
byu/DustineTetris inHongKong

Who will win?
byu/sadandwant2die inHongKong

In some cases, bamboo poles are zip-tied to the bricks to create barriers that could damage the undersides of vehicles that attempt to drive over them. It would appear that the police used armored trucks to break through the barricades, clearing the path for other vehicles, but it seems like it could be an effective way to shut down traffic in other protest scenarios.

A Hong Kong style barricade set up in Central today.
byu/EDoric inHongKong

Using little more than bamboo poles and helmets, some protesters set up homemade catapults:

The students of the Chinese University of Hong Kong successfully created a giant slingshot using only bamboo sticks and helmets. The campus has been under siege by the police for 3 days by now.
byu/DustineTetris inHongKong

Citizens in the streets are also demonstrating novel ways to fight tear gas with thermoses and leaf blowers.

The new way of Hong Kong protesters deal with the tear gas
byu/OWStep inHongKong

Man used a blower to deal with tear gas in Mongkok tonight
byu/Orhac inHongKong

Observers are also reporting the use of drones to deliver supplies to those trapped inside Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Thus far, thousands of people have been arrested, some being transported by train to unknown destinations (which some fear to be mainland China.)

The protesters are also leaving messages to each other and the world using graffiti:

We are not rioters. We are gamblers, gambling our futures for a better Hong Kong.
byu/thpkht524 inHongKong

Don’t know if this has already been posted here but this shows the extremity of things.
byu/ThatisWild inHongKong

Check out more of the Hong Kong protesters’ creations at Interesting Engineering.

Top image via u/VaelinAISo

In Berlin, spanning the 450-foot length of the Brandenburg Gate where the former Wall divided the city, a kinetic installation ripples in the wind, bearing hand-written messages from city residents. Created by artist Patrick Shearn, “Visions in Motion” recognized the 30-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.

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120,000 fabric streamers, 30,000 of them bearing notes, mimic the banners carried during demonstrations of the Peaceful Revolution, when hundreds of people came together to demand the reunification of Germany. Shearn, a resident of Berlin’s sister city Los Angeles, encouraged supporters in LA to participate by contributing their own messages, wishes and hopes for the future to the project.

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“In total, the installation is comprised of approximately 9500 linear ft. of rope, over 1250 hand-tied technical knots and approximately 120,000 ripstop nylon and reflective fabric streamers arranged in an elegant, colorful pattern. Harnessing available wind, the artwork will undulate in a gorgeous, immersive display… Patrick Shearn is particularly inspired to lend his work to this auspicious historical event and intends ‘Visions in Motion’ to be a symbol for peace and the united power of the people overcoming injustice.”

“‘As an artist, I am deeply moved by the invitation to translate such a watershed moment in human history into physical form,” says Shearn. “In light of the state of affairs in the world today, I feel it is a time to be bold, gather together with a unified voice, and throw our shared colors and our dreams skyward for the world to see.’”

The installation was in place from November 4-10 for Berlin Festival Week, when the city transformed “into a large open-air exhibition and event location” for official celebrations.

Artist Jenny Holzer is known for making public statements that can’t be ignored, and her latest project brings stark messages about gun violence to the facades of New York City’s Rockefeller Center. For “VIGIL,” a three-night installation that took place October 10-12, Holzer projected poems by teenagers impacted by school shootings, texts from the compilation “Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence” and stories from “Moments That Survive,” a collection by Everytown for Gun Safety.

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Presented in collaboration with the public arts organization Creative Time, “VIGIL” leaves onlookers no choice but to absorb and grapple with these messages and testimonies. The project aims to center the voices of those directly affected by gun violence, shifting away from using faceless statistics to emphasize the human toll.

“Projected onto one of the most iconic landmarks in New York City, VIGIL speaks to the massive impact gun violence has not only on individuals, but the very fabric of communities and cities,” reads Creative Time’s curatorial statement on the project. “The text encroaches on the facades and windows of these buildings, surrounding the viewer and enveloping the city in messages of light. Through the project, the city itself is transformed.”

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“The scrolling words of Holzer’s projections demand that the audience reads them. This strategy denies passive engagement, as viewers internalize these messages by hearing the text in their own voice. It is not possible to let these words just wash over. Since 1991, Holzer has used this technique to address such issues as domestic violence, war, and the corruption of power. Throughout her career, she has aimed to bring to light that which is hidden. In her ongoing project It Is Guns, trucks equipped with LED screens share pointed texts by the artist similarly addressing gun violence. Holzer expands upon these issues in VIGIL, magnifying her messages from the street to the cityscape.”

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See more photos of the installation at Gothamist.

Photos by Lauren Camarata

Why, Banksy wonders, has he never been invited to the Venice Biennale? Perhaps because they knew he’d do something just like this, invited or not. The elusive British street artist set up an unauthorized stall in what appears to be the city’s famous Piazza San Marco, displaying a nine-panel oil painting of a cruise ship. The piece references the chronic problem of overcrowding in Venice due to tourist activity, leading many residents to call for a ban on cruise ships.

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Posting a video of the kiosk on Instagram (which is essentially the artist’s way of verifying that a work is his), Banksy reveals that he was ultimately told to leave due to lack of a permit.

The artist also claimed responsibility for a new mural that popped up on the wall of a private home along the canal, showing a migrant child holding a pink flare. That piece is likely a response to Italy’s recent actions against migrants, which have led to the closure of ports. Italian forces are said to have ignored ships full of refugees, allowing them to capsize with hundreds of people on board. At least 250 drowned.

At one small point on the United States-Mexico border, where two towns named Tecate are separated by a fence, residents of both countries sat down to the same picnic at a gigantic table printed with ‘The Eyes of the Dreamer.’ This new event, held on October 8th, comes just weeks after the artist rolled out a massive 65-foot-tall photographic installation of a toddler peering over the fence from the Mexico side.

Thanks to all the daydreamers that joined us yesterday ? #PicNicAtTheBorder pic.twitter.com/Y2H1ZJOf4w

— JR (@JRart) October 9, 2017

“GIANT PICNIC at the border today in Tecate … people eating the same food, sharing the same water, enjoying the same music (half of the band on each side) around the eye of a dreamer … we forgot the wall for a minute …” says JR in a Facebook post.

Amazing souvenir of the picnic at the border … @chopemdownfilms pic.twitter.com/pCL0iHkh5E

— JR (@JRart) October 11, 2017

Picnic-goers sat down to the same meal at one big table for the single-day installation, which was apparently pulled off with the help of a sympathetic border guard. A band played, with some of its members sitting on the U.S. side and others on the Mexico side.

I often found an « angel » that helped us make the impossible possible … The picnic today was clearly forbidden and yet possible… pic.twitter.com/YzjJ4fatfH

— JR (@JRart) October 9, 2017

JR is well known for these black-and-white photographic installations, which are put up all over the world, often without official permission. The subjects of his portraits are usually everyday people who live in the area. The TED Prize winner says he aims to use art to “turn the world inside out.”