Tuesday is election day across the United States. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. But also… Organize. Support. Resist. Disrupt. Unite. And vote. Stay active. It’s in that spirit that we’ve installed three posters by the artist/activist/archivist Josh MacPhee.
Josh says, “Living in New York City, the only thing that happens to me out on the street more than being filmed without my consent is bring barraged with advertisements. ‘Public’ space in our society exists only as a conveyor belt to bring us from one point of purchase to another. It’s fucking exhausting. Participating in AiAP temporarily assuages my guilt for not yet buying a chainsaw and cutting through the struts of every single billboard across the country.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Well said. That’s where we’re coming from, in a nutshell.
But in addition to that powerful statement, Josh’s posters are particularly fantastic because A. Strong messages, and B. They invite collaboration. A difficulty of this whole campaign has been to see how many people get excited about what we are doing without entering the payphones and install art themselves. These ads, hopefully, encourage participation. Pull out a marker. Draw on the booths. Fill in the blanks.