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Wednesday morning at the CAA was the best of the past three days. Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960 to Now, an exhibition curated by Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee that was first shown at Exit Art in fall 2008 and is currently on at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University.

This exhibition documents the relationship between social chance and cultural production, showing evidence of social movement culture by presenting the ephemera from events, protests, grass roots movements, social projects that are more than often a small scale response to a local situation, and often happen ‘off the grid’.

In a broader sense they were asking how do we engage in the social realities that we live in and arguing for importance of social  protest. They were questioning the relationship between the artworld and the larger forums of social protest and reflecting on the effectiveness of both.

European social movement groups from the late 1960s and early 1970s like Provo and Kabouters who both active in Amsterdam created real social change- like their white bicycle programme which provided for free bicycles throughou the city and were ahead of their time through these and other  social and political activities.