ART IS REVOLUTION

What's happening today in the United States is the same as what we've seen everywhere else in the world. Yet somehow we are taught...and we believe...that the USA is immune to the social and political issues we have seen in other ("third world") countries.

I think Americans are learning that WE ARE THE SAME and WE ARE NOT BETTER and in many ways, we are, in fact, MUCH WORSE.

"Street stencils start to emerge during the 1970s as an portable way of reproducing images and text quickly. The ability to reproduce a stencil easily gave power to the art and revolution. In Nicaragua, Sandinista revolutionaries used stylized images of Augusto Sandino, an anti-colonial hero of the early 1900s, to fight against the Somoza dictatorship. Sandino’s hat became a symbol of resistance. By the time the Sandinistas overthrew the the Somozas, thousands of stencils of Sandiono’s iconic hat could be found throughout Nicaragua. The repetitive stenciling of ”martyrs” or “heroes” reminded communities of their struggles and also marked where the political organizations operated."

"Similarly, in South Africa, a growing resistance against apartheid, which was an institutionalized system of racial segregation and discrimination in South and South West Africa from 1948-1990s and the censorship of the press led to the rise of stencils to communicate news of the day on walls and show the collective unity of the anti-apartheid movement.

Nelson Mandela, co-founded and led the anti-apartheid resistance group, MK (“Spear of the Nation”) that used guerilla warfare tactics because their peaceful protests were met with force by the government. Mandela was arrested for leaving the country illegally, jailed for 18 out of 27 years, then finished the rest under house arrest. “Free Mandela” was one of the most common messages stenciled during this time."

"Grupo Suma was an artist collective in Mexico that began painting in the streets to reach a broader audience. Some of their life-size stencils were of anonymous bureaucrats and poor indigenous women to expose the disparity between the social classes. They also wanted to make art available for everyone and would often create murals in the street and have tools available for people who wanted to participate."