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Left column:
Nex Benedict
Darri Moore
Kitty Monroe
Sasha Williams
Africa Parrilla Garcia
Righteous Torrence “TK” Hill
Diamond Brigman
Alex “Boo” Taylor Franco
Meraxes Medina
Yella Clark
River Nevaeh Goddard
Tee Arnold
Starr Brown
Andrea Doria Dos Passos
Kita Bee
Right column:
Jazlynn Johnson
Tayy Dior Thomas
Michelle Henry
Liara Kaylee Tsai
Pauly Likens
Kenji Spurgeon
Shannon Boswell
Monique Brooks
Dylan Gurley
Tai’Vion Lathan
Kassim Omar
Redd
Honee Daniels
Santonio “San” Coleman
Quanesha “Cocoa” Shantel
I wanted to do something to honor the many trans people we’ve lost this year. Especially after election day and the devastating results, trans people are feeling more hopeless than ever. Lately, it feels like I’m finding out about the passing of a trans person almost every day. There’s so much negativity surrounding trans people that I wanted to do something to portray trans identities in a positive light. When practically the whole world opposes the idea of being transgender, being trans and showing pride in that is an act of defiance itself. I wanted people to look at it and see that trans people are real people with real feelings and we will not go quietly. The phrase written at the bottom, “more than a statistic,” is meant to humanize those who’ve died this year and also trans individuals in general. No matter the push back, trans people will continue to exist. We have always been here and we always will. I also wanted to show that despite the public perception of trans people, being trans isn’t some curse that trans people all dread having been born with; it’s a beautiful thing that deserves to be celebrated. That’s what the butterflies represent: metamorphosis, rebirth, new beginnings. I love being trans, even if it’s hard sometimes, and I want it to be known that many other trans people feel the same. While my sister and I were drawing the butterflies, two men walking down the street stopped to look at what we’d written and talked about it amongst themselves for a good few minutes. I don’t know what was being said, as they were speaking in Spanish, but they both seemed to be very interested in it. I had a few other interactions like that, of people stopping in their tracks to look at what we’d written on the ground. One of our neighbors asked us what we were doing, and I got to explain to him that I wanted to do something in memory of the trans people we’ve lost this year and to honor them.
A big inspiration for this was the movie “I Saw the TV Glow,” written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun. This movie is about the complexity of transness and the struggle, as well as the relief, of finding your true self. A key message of this movie is that “there is still time,” and it’s something that’s reinforced throughout the whole movie. Even if you’re too scared to look inside yourself, even if you think you’re too old, even if you’ve spent a whole lifetime unsure of who you were, there is still time. This movie also uses the powerful symbolism of burying yourself alive as a metaphor for transness. You must bury the person you were forced to be, in order to be reborn as the person you’re meant to be and always were deep down. There’s also a scene which shows chalk drawings on the ground with the phrase, “there is still time” underneath them, and I liked the idea of using chalk to spread the message.
Quotes:
“We may like to think of politics as a purely rational business, where sensible people logically discuss and debate the issues at hand, come to a reasoned decision, and then judiciously act. Certainly this is how politics has been taught to us in our civics classes. But as recent developments in cognitive science suggest, humans don’t think and behave this way: we make sense of our world through stories and symbols that frame the information we receive and then act accordingly.” ("Why Art Activism?" https://c4aa.org/2018/04/why-artistic-activism)
This is why activism through art tends to be so effective. It’s not just numbers to interpret, it appeals to our humanity. Historically, humans have shared ideas throughout mythology and storytelling because it’s easier to digest information and retain it that way; it gives us something to think about and interpret for ourselves.
“Another important goal of activist art is to create awareness of existing political and social issues. When the public is looking away from suffering that could be prevented or does not want to be confronted with it, activist art often creates a dialogue and forces people to think about these problems.” ("An Introduction to Activist Art" https://www.thecollector.com/introduction-to-activist-art/)
I figured putting my piece on the sidewalk would make it so that anyone walking past it would have to acknowledge it to some degree.
Sources/Research:
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