Artists are often celebrated for their ability to bring beauty and hope into our lives, providing refuge at times of turmoil. But artists can also bring us to confront painful truths; they can lift up voices and stories that are marginalized, ignored or repressed. At this moment, when thousands are marching in the streets to protest racial, economic and environmental injustices, how can artists provide the inspiration and perhaps even tools for social change? Cedric “Vise1” Douglas is a Boston artist and designer who has been working on social justice themes and community empowerment for many years. He has been illuminating the scope of violence directed at Black citizens in the United States through a group of projects that reinvent memorial language. “I call these Street memorials,” Douglas explained. “As someone who got my start as a graffiti artist, but also studied art and design … [Read more...] about Tools of Protest
July/August 2020
Welcome Statement July/August 2020
‘Modern technology has made it possible for us to view events originating anywhere in the world simultaneous to their occurrence. Unlike pre-satellite days when a population nervously awaited word from a catastrophe or war zone, we now view world events as easily as a television mini-series. Media packaging leaves the two resembling one another, with the large concentration of information thrown upon us, leaving us temporarily entertained, but unable to fully evaluate and understand what we have viewed.’ I wrote the above words to serve as an introduction to “Instant History,” a 1992 photography exhibition I presented at Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Gordon Library. The exhibition looked at London’s reaction to the Tiananmen Square Massacre and arrests of Chinese Democracy Movement protestors in the days that followed through the eyes of its Chinese community in June 1989 and the … [Read more...] about Welcome Statement July/August 2020