People Find a Voice Through Protest Art

“Don’t stop talking, that's the only time where we're really in danger, if people don't share their concern or expression for even those wonderful quiet things happening in their lives,” said drawing and art appreciation Professor Armin Sarrafan. Art professors and students shared the importance of art as a medium for activism and its history.

“I think it's the most powerful and best way for people to convey their message, you have politicians voicing their opinions, their politicians, they are going to say whatever they want to try and get you to vote for them. But artists and musicians, they tell their truths, they're there to do what they love, to try to convey what they believe in,” said Jairo Moreno, a second year student at Harold Washington College. Art comes in many forms whether it be drawing, dance, theater, or printmaking.

 “Find the right vehicle for sharing your voice. Everybody has a voice and everybody has something to say” said Sarrifan.

 President Andres Oroz has expressed his support for the arts at Wright College.

 "I'm a strong supporter of the arts, whether it’s dance, creative writing, we have a theater program running, whatever students feel comfortable with, that is something that we should continue to provide and support.”

Regarding activism Professor Richard Repasky at Harold Washington said, “Activism has never been more important since the civil rights movement in the 1960s.” 

”Images are a key form of the arts. We project our own hopes, fears, and experiments. That's why I think art is so powerful. You don't have to state things, people are going to read it,” said Professor Steve Amos.

When talking about protest art, the professors that teach art history and art appreciation all brought up Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica”(1937). Guernica is a mural on oil canvas that is 11 feet 5 inches by 25 feet 6 inches. When speaking about Guernica, Sarrifan brought up its importance. “It was a very personal and emotional response to the bombing of Guernica. But it still stands today as one of the most important paintings in the 20th century,” Sarrifan said. 

 Professor Sonya Bogdanova brings up that Guernica is “an argument against the contentification of protest art.” Bogdanova added, “You won't see Guernica, a large, abstract piece plastered around. Guernica avoids being straight forward with its narrative.” 

 “The most successful activist art or protest art is either extremely visceral or extremely abstracted,” Bogdanova said.

Moreno brought up the new Batman series called Absolute Batman, where Batman is not the wealthy billionaire playboy we know him as but as someone who comes from a working class family living in crime alley. In Absolute Batman, there is heavy anti-racism and fascist imagery, “One of the newer issues he(Batman)fights the KKK, the artist for it(Daniel Warren Johnson) drew batman choking out an ice agent, ”  Moreno said, demonstrating how Batman is used as a symbol of protest towards issues like fascism and bigotry. 

Professor Sarrifan brought up a unique contemporary work, “MEXUS: A Geography of Interdependence," by Estudio Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, which functions as a protest art about immigration policy. MEXUS is a map of the U.S. and Canada border in which the waterways are lit up. “The water's natural forces of the tide, it made no sense that there would be a border there… It was such a simple and powerful statement on how these issues around the border are kind of ridiculous,” said Sarrifan.