Visual Activism in the Era of Black Lives Matter
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Visual activism is crucial to current social movements. With the rise of social media in the 21st century, virtually all of our messages are sent and received through imagery. Making intent-driven visual art an effective method to push necessary and uncensored messages to the masses. Most social movements are consequently heavily linked to art and visual messaging. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement being a strong example of such.
Coined by Nancy Fraser as a subaltern counterpublic, it “amplifies knowledge and counter-discourses that affirm the identities and needs of the black community … [through] creating a space dedicated to centralizing marginalized voices”[1]. Meaning that this movement is no longer rooted in respectability politics, the idea that you have to assimilate, be civil and work inside the institution to be heard and to make reform possible, like the Civil Rights Movement tokened. Instead, it is rooted in disrupting the institution.
This difference in focus results in a difference in visual tactics—the most prominent ones being the manipulation of the gaze and the taking up of space. The gaze, explained by Mirzoeff[2], is a method to assert power through surveillance—through looking. This power of looking is one specifically tied to and rooted in movements of black liberation. As during the Jim Crow Era, looking at a white person the wrong way, known as reckless eyeballing, was often the start of violent acts against them.
Similarly, owning land was denied and unfairly segregated, and an effort to change that fact would also be met with violence. Thus, subverting the gaze—looking back, looking straight at the oppressor—and demanding space—standing ground, taking up room—as a visual tactic in black centered activism work is extremely powerful and fitting towards critiquing and liberating themselves from the struggle.
The visual activism of the BLM movement has not only demanded the gaze through the physical art of Mirror Casket and the protest tactic of staring at back at police but has also demanded space, through the making of the large BLM murals, and smaller murals throughout cities across America—with piece Eyes of Eric Garner serving to mix both these elements.
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Mirror Casket's use of reflection and conceptual design and the protest tactic of staring back at the police strategically demands the gaze—an effective tactic in black centered visual activism work. Mirror Casket was a sculpture and traveling performance piece collaboratively designed by a community of St. Louis artists in Ferguson Missouri.
The piece was a response to the killing of Michael Brown in August of 2014 that spurred yet another wave of BLM protests across the United States. The sculpture is a large 6-foot casket, in which the frontward face is a cracked mirror and the sides of the casket are unbroken mirrors with a clear reflection. The casket would be used in protest by carrying it on is back through the crowd of protesters and eventually placed upward at the line of police.
As it was being carried through the crowd, protesters walking alongside it would see their clear reflection. Confronting the viewer with the impression that they or anyone one around them could have been and could eventually be in that casket—as they are physically seeing their faces projected onto it by way of the mirror. As humans and egocentric beings, mirrors also draw our attention—we want to look at ourselves. Allowing this design to additionally have a high likelihood of engagement. Once drawn to the mirror you can’t help but be drawn to the piece itself—to examine it, think of its message—think of how it could be you inside of that casket. Thus making its structure and use of reflection heavily in line with the tactic of demanding the gaze as well as an opportunity to engage with deconstructing how its manipulated.
After passing through the crowd of protestors, the sculpture would be propped up in front of the line of police—the cracked mirror confronting the officers’ gaze. Cracked mirrors evoke a feeling of fracture—a split in your person. By seeing multiple views of themselves fragmented, the distortion created causes policemen to question if participating in these larger systems causes a split in their values—a split within themselves. And if they are willing to do the work to dismantle the system and create consistency in their values, or if they want to be complicit in their split morals and the uncomfortable tug it elicits. The placement of the cracked mirror at the face of the casket is also done as a means to cause the policemen to be confronted with the death they cause. With them being framed inside of the piece and thus inside of the casket. They are not only challenged with the aftermath of the culture of police brutality—death—but are challenged by seeing themselves in this casket as well. Thus, making the uses of clear and cracked reflection as well as the composition of the casket itself an effective method of demanding the gaze.
Another common method of demanding the gaze is the protest tactic used in the BLM movement of staring head-on at the police. This strategy is often photographed and serves as quite a powerful performance piece. The above image in particular earned much acclaim. Taken in Baton Rouge Louisiana at the height of BLM protests in response to the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile it pictures a young black woman standing in a firm but peaceful stance with her eyes looking straight into the those of policemen rushing to grab and zip tie her forearms.
While her gaze subverts, it is the photographer's action of taking the image—and the image itself—that employs the added visual activist mechanism of demanding the gaze. As by capturing the moment, it is deeming a level of importance to the knowledge that black people are no longer afraid and complicit to the racist structures of America. That they will reclaim a tactic of inferiority that was used against them, will look head-on at the police, will reclaim the denied power of the gaze. And with this photograph’s rise in virality—online and in highly recognized magazines such as The Times and CNN—means that this message of demanding the gaze is one that will be known. That the wave of taking a stance in our beliefs and gaze back will spread. Not only is this strategy of demanding the gaze a strong mechanism of visual activism, but the act of taking up space with art and un-tolerated wording is one as well.
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Large BLM murals, as well as the collective of murals painted on boarded-up shops across the United States, serve as yet another effective mechanism of strong visual activism by unapologetically taking up space that black people have historically been denied. In this most recent surge of the BLM movement, a collaborative of artists in DC proposed to the mayor of the city to create a large mural across the span of two blocks of 16th street. In large blocked yellow letters, the mural is grand and holds a strong presence. With the words “Black Lives Matter” filling the edges of the concrete the untolerated wording of the phrase itself and the cities' unapologetic use of it holds much power. Unable to see the full scope of the message when physically walking through it, it leaves participants feeling small next to it.
Articulating that this message is one to be heard and felt by many—that this problem is large—and that its message is severely important. The fact that it is written on cement—coating the land itself—also carries much meaning. With black people in this country having a history of being segregated out of properties, denied the right to own land—being slaves to it and brutalized on it—there is a strong feeling in the black community of not feeling at home in this country—that we are not safe and welcome. Having this message etched into the concrete thus symbolically speaks to how black people have a right to this land and to feel welcome and at peace in it. With the mural itself serving as example and trailblazer to it by unapologetically taking up space and stating Black Lives Matter as plain fact.
Murals have also been used widely as a means of protest and activism throughout cities across the United States since the inception of the movement. Often painted on boarded-up stores; the murals serve not only as a critique of the fear towards these BLM protests; by symbolically using the mechanism they put up in fear—the boards—as the canvas for their message and art. But also serve as a means to share untolerated wording through pairing is with aesthetically appealing and powerful visual tactics. The mural You Have the Right to Remain Heard spray painted by artist Kreau in the occupied space Capital Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) in Seattle during the 2020 BLM protests is an example of just that.
Spray painted on a clearly boarded up sign the statement reads “You have the right to remain heard” with an image of a black man with his mouth masked by an American flag and collar guilded with bullets pointed towards his face. This piece with its strong matter of fact messaging and visual elements speak to how the visual activism of the BLM movement serves as a platform to share uncensored messages. And with many murals being produced in high volume across cities around the United States their total mass is what allows a powerful and effective reclamation of space to occur. The occupied space CHOP also went one step further, by not only having these murals coat the boards but by reclaiming the street itself.
As seen in this image the street has been completely overtaken by art as radical as Kreau’s Mural piece, with people walking on what would be piled with cars, the entire space is re-contextualized and reclaimed into one that uplifts the messages of the subaltern counter-public. In this way, this protest demands space and simultaneously critiques how space is used in America. As by claiming the street you are reclaiming property of the government—property that has a history of being denied to black people, property black people are slaughtered on.
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Not only do activist art—performance and visual—serve as important tactics to demand space and subvert the gaze, but used together its methods are even more impactful. The performance and visual art piece Eyes of Eric Garner is an example of such a piece that has used both of these elements described to make an impressive statement against police brutality.
Created for the Millions March in New York City on December 13th 2014 the Parisian artist JR enlarged images of the eyes of Eric Garner, a victim of police brutality, on placards. A group of eight people marched with these placards through the duration of the protest with a large group of protestors following their lead. There is much to unpack about this piece. The use of the eyes as centerpiece makes this piece an effective critique through subverting the gaze. Being that they are the eyes of a victim of police brutality, it makes its stare that much more powerful. Allowing Garner the ability to reclaim the power that was denied of him, his eyes loom—stern and strong—his gaze carried and amplified by the protestors that push his fight on.
With imagery similar to that of Selma, the photograph that captures this moment carries the added symbolic power of generational pushes for liberation. With the crowd of people behind these placards and the fact that they are marching on the most renowned New York Street, this piece also effectively demands space. Filling government property with not only the piece itself but the crowds of people that support this message—the visual imagery is able to have yet another layer of power through presence. Lastly, the photograph of this performance piece also demands the gaze in that way—it demands its disruption of space and gaze to be known, similarly to the Baton Rouge photograph. And considering its virality it was effective at just that.
Overall, the use of the subversion of and demanding of space and gaze are effective tools of the Black Lives Matter movement as a subaltern counterpublic that no longer relies on tolerated wording and respectability politics to get messages across. Rooted in radicalism, and stating beliefs and wants uncensored, the visual activist art produced by this movement echoes these foundational goals effectively.
[1] Fraser, Nancy. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” Social Text, no. 25/26 (1990): 56. https://doi.org/10.2307/466240.
[2] Mirzoeff, Nicholas D. “How Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter Taught Us Not to Look Away.” The Conversation, June 4, 2020. https://theconversation.com/how-ferguson-and-blacklivesmatter-taught-us-not-to-look-away-45815.