285 Social Justice in Visual Culture

The Land Art Generator Initiative group spent a summer with a group of kids in Homewood for a learning-intensive camp that culminated in a fully functioning, solar-power-generating public artwork that the kids designed for their own neighborhood. In the Art+Energy camp, kids of a wide range of ages all took on important roles. They traveled to sites where energy is generated from conventional sources, learned through hands-on projects how solar energy works, built experimental structures, and brainstormed on how their project could best serve their community’s needs. Their Renaissance Gate was fully functional by the end of the camp, and the kids can carry this experience with them into their future learning.

Kids: “I don’t want to die.” “I don’t want to go to Juvie, I have a basketball game tomorrow.” Police: “He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.” “The officers followed protocol.” Parent: “This is why we don’t let them go nowhere.” Video from ABC News, April 25 2017.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (screencapped above) has been covering the ongoing problem of contamination of the city’s water supply, but for the most part, visual coverage  has been limited to stock images of faucets and occasional shots from activist meetings. The stock photos in particular do nothing to help us understand the problem; they mostly just fill space. The city is attempting to distribute free lead filtration pitchers to city residents, but the publicity for this program has been mostly invisible. (I had to laugh when I noticed that the ad in the bottom screencap is from Moen, manufacturer of quality faucets.)

Have you heard about 412 Food Rescue? This dynamic local nonprofit connects grocery stores and other food providers with organizations that serve the hungry, using a network of volunteers to get food to people while it’s still fresh. It’s an innovative solution to both food waste and healthy food access in Pittsburgh neighborhoods. You can even use their app to be notified when they need help -- or follow them on Facebook for regular updates. Their branding reflects hometown pride, and projects a sense of Pittsburgh’s identity as a hub of innovation and sustainable thinking.

“People don’t realize that you never get over it, unless you’re just cold and calculated. I’ll never forget it. Not a day goes by. Not a day goes by. And I don’t expect it to. If it does, then I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, as a Christian and as a chaplain and as a human being.”

These illustrations are from comic books produced by The Real Cost of Prisons Project. They distribute a range of comic books about the prison system in America, which you can download as PDFs. The top and bottom images come from Prisoners of the War on Drugs; the center page spread is from Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children. These comics are inviting to read and emotionally expressive in a way that only visual art can be. The stories create a human connection to day to day workings of mass incarceration.

Bottom: Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota.  “I could see a teardrop going down her eyes.  I didn’t know what was going on. Before noon, we heard screams and cries.  When I went up there, I seen nothing but women getting attacked by dogs, getting chewed up.” (at Standing Rock Indian Reservation)

From The Daily Show: So many brands could have capitalized on social justice tie-ins!

The Tampa Bay Times posted this interactive data visualization, including individual narratives, to accompany a larger project on race and policing in Florida. It’s a particularly effective example of information graphics, where dots come to represent cases we know, then multiply into more dots, reorganizing into patterns that are easy to follow. The interactive feature serves as an introduction to Why Cops Shoot, a substantial work of investigative journalism.

Recent developments in energy include impending closures of multiple coal plants. We’re also seeing widespread discussion of the role of the EPA, as people speculate on what the future of the agency might look like. Part of this discussion has been a look back at the agency’s achievements, and in this context, a number of sites have featured material from the Documerica project, which was covered on this tumblr a few weeks ago.

“Images can be a point of entry for movements, so they can bring people in ... they maybe can give a sense of the big picture, and also images can be used to complicate what the big picture is.” The Interference Archive is an enormous international collection of activist graphics, including posters, buttons, zines, t-shirts, and more. Exhibitions have been curated from their collections of ephemera, including Signs of Change, which was first seen here in Pittsburgh. You can sift through a growing sample of their collection at the Interference Archive online.