Creative Forms of Protest | Photography
I'm at music camp and taking a course on songs for the justice and peace. They are really hard to write! If we pull it off (the group is writing a song together) I'll let you know.
In the meantime, resistance is about all the arts. Painting, photography, acting, dance, music, and more. We must involve our whole selves.
-Liz
Photography and Resistance
On our free day in Edinburgh Ken and I went to the National Museum of Scotland: Modern Two to see the exhibit Resistance: How Protests Shaped Britain and Photography Shaped Protests. Black and white photos from 1903 to 2003 show protestors standing up against injustice, and as identifying photos for the police to use to limit their actions.
The museum-sized descriptions give a bit of background on the particular march, sometimes simply the issue addressed in the protest. Occassionaly they offered a word on the success, or not, of the campaign. In most cases the protestors did not get what they were looking for, but there was some later legislation passed. Eventually women did get the vote, people with disabilities were guaranteed some rights, queer folk were allowed to marry. Except for the vote, the approved legislation provided somewhat less than what the protestors hoped for.
And the images of marches for jobs, for food, for a better social support network, stood out as a continuation of the struggle of people who are poor over centuries. Before the time of photography the Clearance of the Scottish highlands, where tenant farmers were forced to leave their land from 1740 to 1860. Despite the protests of the poor, thousand were forced into cities, large towns, and to emigrate. In 1886 the Crofters' Holding Act made moderate land reforms, but the small highland farmers had already been replaced by sheep.
I suppose the exhibit could be depressing to some. The work of protest rarely accomplishes their lofty goals. But I found it instead to be inspirational. The protests of today may to fix anything today. But I was moved by the images of people protesting in the early twentieth century for things that have benefited me, today. Protests are about the future.
The protests changed the dialogue. They brought attention to the possibility of nuclear destruction, climate change, to death and sickness brought on by poverty. They make the obvious point that access to basic services is limited due to one's disability, gender and relational identity, immigration status. They make what might seem to be a minority view bigger, more public, they give the marchers, and the watchers, hope for new way.
And the protests were creative. In another exhibit in Glasgow we saw the spoon used by a anti-nuclear activists to create chaos by steadily tapping a metal fence. A penny earned by a suffragette during forced labor after her arrest. This exhibit showed photos of the joy of a Caribbean immigrant group celebrating a festival in the face of discrimination. A young boy wearing a pig mask next to a police officer in Belfast during the troubles. Wives of soldiers during the Great War refusing to pay rapidly escalating rents. People threatened with eviction throwing flour and water on those moving their belongings. Blind men offering people the option to "piss on pity" into the beggars bowl.
The creativity we saw inspired me. It makes me remember that the killing of the students at Kent State is seared in our mind in part because of the contrast to the flowers they placed in gun barrels. We are at a tie that creativity is again called for. Clowns, dancers, make-up, puppets, even interesting hand-knitted hats can all help deliver the messages of our protest. (I like the glitter-bombing I have heard about, but Snopes reports it has not actually happened.)
Surely there is something that those of us not at risk of arrest can do with our masked ICE terror. Can we show up and offer to buy some ice? Can we provide them with cups of ice? We don't want to throw anything--they are armed--but we can be unreasonably kind and disruptive. I have a fantasy of one hundred thousand little old white ladies (like me) reporting to ICE that our ancestors arrived here without papers and we understand that is now a crime.
Of course the fact that we intend to be making light of, and fun of, the violence does not mean it will be safe to do these things. I just figure that eventually the arrests of thousands of old white ladies attract attention. Heck we could do this with old ladies that will lose their medicaid--and then when arrested we can comment that at least now we'll have health care.
Protests in the short term do not bring about change. But they bring awareness, visibility, and bring people together. And in the long run, they make a difference.
What is your church doing, or thinking about doing these days? How are you being here in your particular place? Just reply to this email to let me know what's happening.
Here is a review of the exhibit we saw when it opened in Kent in March of this year.
Amnesty International offers 50 creative forms of protest.
The Freedom Forum offers 8 creative strategies for protest.
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