2B —Thursday, October 25, 2018
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

What democracy looks like: The 
intersection of art and activism

When politics are brought up, it 

invokes a series of reactions. Some 
may jump at the term, desperate 
for any chance to share their bona 
fide beliefs. Others will recoil, 
either because of their discomfort 
in 
disclosing 
their 
political 

dispositions 
or 
embarrassment 

at their ignorance of the topic. 
Politics can ruin friendships, first 
dates and Thanksgiving dinners — 
particularly now, at a time during 
which one’s politics has seemingly 
become the defining pillar of their 
character. In this polarized state 
that too often turns ugly, it may 
seem ridiculous to try and find any 
beauty in the chaos.

Yet, that it is exactly what many 

have set out to do. To people of 
all ages and backgrounds, the 
tumultuous country they have 
found themselves living in is not 
one where they feel defeated, 
but rather compelled to fight on. 
With every shocking decision and 
revolting remark, there is a new 
protest, a new fundraiser, a new 
movement looking to help anyone 
that may need it. In the darkness 
of prejudice and intolerance comes 
the fire of activism, and there is 
no better way to express such 
passion than through the universal 
medium of art.

The 
Center 
for 
Artistic 

Activism, based in New York City, 
defines artistic activism as “a 
dynamic practice combining the 
creative power of the arts to move 
us emotionally with the strategic 
planning of activism necessary to 
bring about social change.” Simply 
put, this form of art is meant to 
make the viewer feel something 
powerful; to make them want to 
promote change. In 2014, during a 
seemingly unending string of mass 
shootings, artist Michael Murphy 
created an installation of toy guns 
shaped as the the United States. 
During the Women’s March, news 
sources hung onto pictures of hand-
woven pussy hats and personally 
made signs. These images provoked 
thought, hope and a desire to make 
the future different.

Amplifier is a design lab based 

in Seattle. Its specialty is activist 
art and its mission is to “flip artists 
into activists, and observers into 
participants,” according to its 
website. While you may not have 
heard of Amplifier, you have 
definitely seen the work of its 
artists. The now-iconic image of a 
woman wearing an American flag 
hijab was a part of Amplifier’s “We 
The People” campaign, which its 
website describes as “a nonpartisan 
campaign dedicated to igniting a 
national dialogue about American 
identity and values through public 
art and story sharing.”

In an email interview with The 

Daily, Deputy Director of Amplifier, 
Cleo Barnett explained the “We 
The Future” campaign as a way of 
“moving energy and ideas from our 
streets into our classrooms.”

Following 
the 
success 
and 

impact of “We The People,” 
Amplifier has moved on to a new 
project: supplementing education 
with art. The organization’s latest 
campaign, titled “We The Future,” 
looks 
to 
replace 
traditional 

classroom posters and resources 
with ones made by more diverse 
and 
activist-minded 
artists. 

Young leaders from various social 
movements including gun control, 
climate protection, immigration 
and 
voting 
rights 
are 
being 

represented through art and stories 

to inspire the next generation of 
activists. The hope is that by seeing 
activists that more closely align 
with themselves, rather than old, 
white presidents or an outdated 
propaganda poster, students will 
in turn feel an internalized need to 
participate.

Barnett 
reiterated 
the 

goals of Amplifier as a way to 
ignite creativity and promote 
representation. 

“Our goal is to reclaim and 

rebuild an American identity rooted 
in equality, dignity, diversity, truth 
and beauty,” Barnett wrote, “For 
young people who are not used to 
seeing themselves in history books 
or on the walls of classrooms, what 
Amplifier and its partners are 
distributing is more than art.”

Bayeté 
Ross 
Smith 
is 
a 

multimedia 
artist, 
filmmaker 

and educator who has previously 
done work with Amplifier. As a 
photographer, his work often falls 
under the category of turning 
observers into participants.

“Far too often people will take 

a very surface approach to (social 
issues) and won’t dig deeper,” he 
said in a phone interview with The 
Daily. “That often means that we’re 
not getting involved in constructive 
and productive exchanges of ideas. 
… You see the work I do and you 
have a certain reaction to it, my 
hope is one will question why they 
had that reaction, the validity of 
that reaction and why their reaction 
was different from someone else’s.”

When it comes to viewing 

art, the way one receives and is 
impacted by a piece comes down to 
perspective.

“I 
think 
one’s 
personal 

foundation is always the foundation 
for the lense through which they 
see the world,” Smith said. “If we 
were all sitting in the same room 
and we were to photograph it, all 
of our photographs would look a bit 
different. They’ll all technically be 
truthful, but they’ll still be vastly 
different. You can see the same 
thing from different perspectives 
and see various forms of truth, it’s 
just important to be aware of how 
our perspectives impact us.”

Using art as a form of activism 

is not an exclusively contemporary 
concept. For decades, the voices of 
the oppressed are most strongly 
shown in the literature and 
artwork they create. This creativity 
has filtered through generations, 
impacting the modernized form 
of various historical movements 
and weaving itself into the public 
sphere. A controversial example 
of this is Beyoncé’s use of the style 
of the Black Panther Party in her 
2017 Super Bowl Halftime show to 
support to the Black Lives Matter 
movement and the issues facing 
the Black community. Much of the 
Black Panther Party’s image and 
protest was projected in its style, 

as it challenged conventional looks 
of the time. Their daring artistry 
has stood the test of time, as has 
the legacy of a magnitude of social 
movements from American history. 

On the special collections floor 

of the Hatcher Graduate Library, 
the Labadie Collection is housed 
in hidden stacks. An anthology 
of pamphlets, posters, buttons, 
newspapers and other materials 
from activist movements dating 
back to the early 20th century, 
the collection has been a part of 
University archives since 1911. It 
was donated by Joseph Labadie, a 
Mich. native who was active in the 
anarchist and labor movements of 
the late 1800s.

Julie Herrada has been the 

curator of the Labadie Collection 
since 2000. Before that, she was 
assistant curator for six years. 
She says while the collection still 
gathers modern anarchist and 
labor literature, it has grown into 
a selection of a variety of activist 
materials from around the United 
States and the world.

“The original donation from 

Joseph Labadie was early-19th-
century 
materials 
on 
labor 

movements, socialist and anarchist 
movements, then with each curator 
it grew in size to include those 
contemporary movements of the 
day,” Herrada said in an interview 
with The Daily. “Whatever was 
happening within the time period 
of the curator, they could start 
collecting that and adding so the 
collection included all forms of 
social protest and all countries, so it 
has an international scope as well.”

The existence of the Labadie 

Collection, and particularly its 
earlier pieces, makes for a vital 
comparison of activist art from 
over a century ago to an image 
created today. While the anarchist 
and labor movements that started 
the collection may now seem 
dormant, that does not diminish its 
importance.

“I think it’s important for people 

who are in college now to know 
that these the movements had 
relevance and were important in 
their time and how people spread 
the word about those messages,” 
Herrada explained. “You can look 
at something online and you will 
really not get the same feeling 
about it as if you’re holding it in 
your hands. Maybe hundreds of 
people held it in their hands and 
maybe the first person who held it 
in their hands was the person who 
created it. It gives you a sense of 
excitement about connecting to the 
past.”

Connections to the past are 

exactly what viewers of the Labadie 
Collection are looking for. Herrada 
said the collection is often visited 
by classes at the University — three 
had observed the pieces just on the 
one day we held our interview — 

and students and professors alike 
generally have the same response.

“When they are reading some of 

the documents from 50 years ago 
they see how relevant the content 
is to today,” Herrada noted. “It’s 
something that could’ve been 
written yesterday, as opposed to 
50 years ago, and I always see them 
kind of surprised by that. We’ve 
come so far in our society but yet 
we are still arguing about these 
same things.”

Whether it is the advancement 

of labor rights, the recognition 
of 
transgender 
individuals 
or 

the continuation of the fight for 
civil rights, the United States has 
experienced 
expansive 
social 

crusades for centuries. Though 
the outright goal of these activists 
may differ, their core values remain 
the same throughout movements. 
Be it laborers campaigning for fair 
treatment and working conditions 
or 
the 
LGBT 
community 

demanding basic human rights, 
activism grows out of admitting 
something is wrong and unjust and 
demanding to live your life — while 
inspiring others to do the same — in 
any way that can make a difference. 
 

So many people brush aside 

social issues because they have 
heard about it but don’t know 
enough or they think someone 
else is taking care of it. Art has the 
power to change this indifference. 
It 
transcends 
language 
and 

backgrounds 
to 
reach 
people 

in a way that transforms the 
problem into something tangible, 
something that applies to them. 
Unlike speeches, news reports and 
monotonous facts, art conjures 
emotions 
and 
thoughtfulness. 

As Smith said, “You now feel in 
your heart that responding to this 
event or occurrence or dynamic 
in the world is an important and 
relevant part of your daily life. 
Art takes things that we may be 
able to intellectualize, and makes 
them actively relevant to our daily 
experiences in a provocative and 
compelling way.”

According to Amplifier’s Deputy 

Director, Cleo Barnett, “Art is 
more than beauty or decoration: It 
is a weapon and a shield. Art has 
the power to wake people up and 
serve as a catalyst for real change. 
It is a megaphone for important 
but unheard voices that need 
amplifying. It is a bridge that can 
unite movements with shared 
values in ways other mediums 
cannot. Art gives us symbols to 
gather around, builds community, 
and helps us feel like we are not 
alone.” 

To learn more about the work of 

Amplifier, Cleo Barnett or Bayeté 
Ross Smith visit amplifier.org and 
bayeterosssmith.com.

The Labadie Collection may be 

viewed by request on the sixth floor 
of the Hatcher Graduate Library.

SAMANTHA DELLA FERA

Daily Arts Writer

COURTESY OF AMPLIFIER

BSIDE LEAD

COURTESY OF LABADIE COLLECTION

If I hear ‘America 
First’ in a movie 
again, I will die

The 
next 
time 
someone 

quotes Donald Trump in a 
movie and tries to pass it off as 
political satire, I am going to 
spontaneously combust in the 
theater.

It’s a feeling that began 

festering 
inside 
me 
this 

summer when I watched “The 
First Purge” and bore witness 
to a scene in which a man in a 
dollar store demon mask grabs 
a woman by her nether regions 
only to be fought off and declared 
a — ahem — “p*ssy-grabbing 
motherf*cker.” Since then, it’s 
only grown, and most recently 
it reached its climax with my 
viewing of “Venom,” which 
saw fit to include a scene where 
the villain dismisses reports 
of human experimentation as 
“fake news.”

“It’s going to happen,” I 

realized then. “My soul will 
detonate, and it will take my 
body with it.”

To be clear, these are not 

the words of an angry Trump 
supporter who can no longer 
bear the thought of those 
dastardly Hollywood liberals 
besmirching the good name of 
the Donald. Quite the opposite 
— I believe film and satire 
are art forms uniquely suited 
to 
tackle 
the 

problems posed 
by the current 
administration 
and 
galvanize 

the 
public 
in 

opposition 
to 
them. 
The 

problem 
now 

is 
we’re 
not 

satirizing 
Trump. 
We’re 

just sarcastically 
repeating 
what 

he says.

The 

foundation 
of 

satire is taking 
an ideology and 
turning it inside 
out, whether it’s 
“Cabin in the Woods” turning 
horror tropes into a workplace 
comedy or “The Death of Stalin” 
turning the murderous power-
jockeying of post-Stalin Soviet 
politics into a Monty Python-
esque farce. Whatever the case, 
there’s an idea that’s being 
engaged with and subverted.

The 
problem 
is 
we’ve 

been foregoing this analysis 
in favor of simply quoting 
Trump and leaving it at that, 
shifting the focus away from 
where 
it 
should 
be 
both 

politically 
and 
satirically: 

his actions. Trump could be 
a thespian of Shakespearean 
wit and vocabulary, and if he 
still 
dehumanizes 
everyone 

who isn’t a straight, white, 
American-born man with his 
every action, he would remain 
the worst president we’ve had 
this side of World War II. We 
should be able to take stock 
of what he’s done and build a 
movie around something.

Yet for whatever reason, 

Hollywood seems reluctant to 
move away from mere quotes 
in favor of something more 
substantial and lasting. Instead, 
we get Alec Baldwin’s gaudy, 
inexplicably 
Emmy 
Award-

winning Trump caricature. We 
get “The First Purge” dressing 
half its cast like Nazis with 
a leather fetish. We get the 
aforementioned “fake news” 
line 
in 
“Venom” 
and 
any 

number of other films like it. 
This doesn’t mean any movie, in 
order to make a statement, has 
to be straight political jargon, 
either. Just look at “Star Wars.”

Die-hard saga fans and film 

history buffs will probably 
know 
that 
the 
original 

trilogy is a critique of Nixon-
era 
politics, 
particularly 

regarding the Vietnam War, 
in which the technologically 
advanced Empire stood in for 
America and the underdog 
Rebellion took cues from the 
Viet Cong. Those weren’t the 

only influences — Lucas took 
inspiration 
from 
everything 

from World War II dogfights 
to western serials to Japanese 
cinema — but through it all, 
the framework was kept the 
same: a hostile, technologically 
advanced, 
imperialist 
force 

tries and fails to overcome a 
much smaller opposition.

Those 
political 
musings 

continued into the prequels, 
with Lucas aiming to tell a 
story of how democracies can 
be supplanted from within. 
By the time “Revenge of the 
Sith” rolled around in 2005, 
he had updated his real-world 
targets to include Dick Cheney 
and George W. Bush. Even 
the sequels, which began as a 
what-if scenario on the idea of 
Nazis regrouping in Argentina, 
evolved into a commentary 
on the entitlement and fragile 
identity politics at the core of 
the alt-right as time went on 
and the movement entered the 
mainstream.

Popular entertainment and 

political analysis don’t need to 
be kept separate. They just need 
to be smart about it. As with the 
Force, there has to be a balance. 
If Luke had walked into the 
throne room in “Return of 
the Jedi” and the Emperor 
had started belting out Nixon 
quotes, 
something 
magical 

would have been lost. Likewise, 

if 
Lucas 

hadn’t been so 
passionate about 
communicating 
his 
political 

beliefs 
to 
the 

masses, 
“Star 

Wars” may not 
have 
gotten 

made, and the 
landscape 
of 

cinema 
as 
we 

know it would 
be 
a 
different 

— and, I would 
argue, worse — 
place.

On the other 

hand, if a film 
wants 
to 
be 

through-and-

through political, it has its own 
tightrope to walk: It has to toe 
the line between resembling 
a cultural moment enough 
to be relevant and distanced 
enough from that moment to 
continue to be relevant years 
and even decades down the 
road. 
“BlacKkKlansman” 

comes as close as any film I’ve 
seen 
to 
satirizing 
Trump-

era politics as it presents and 
combats an ideology, but it then 
makes the mistake of explicitly 
tying itself to Trump. Instead 
of being about the continual 
reoccurrence of white hate, 
it becomes about one specific 
reoccurrence. It will be all too 
easy for future generations of 
nationalists to pass over it once 
the age of Trump has ended: 
“That’s not about us. It’s about 
Trump, see?”

Compare 
that 
to 
“Wag 

the Dog,” which follows a 
Washington spin doctor and a 
Hollywood producer as they 
construct a fake war to distract 
from a presidential sex scandal. 
The film is based on a book that 
acted as a critique of Desert 
Storm, but it was released on 
Dec. 17, 1997, exactly one month 
before the Monica Lewinsky 
scandal broke and about nine 
months before Clinton was 
accused of bombing suspected 
al-Qaeda bases to distract from 
said scandal. The film was 
famously brought up then, but 
in the age of “Look over there!” 
politics, “Wag the Dog” has 
stayed relevant, its message 
adaptable to multiple political 
climates but never less than 
incisive.

That’s what we should be 

striving for: Films that can 
combat Trump, that can show 
people who may not otherwise 
realize what he truly is, but 
which won’t lose their meaning 
the moment he leaves office. 
I’m not saying it’s going to be 
easy. But it will, I believe, be 
worth it.

JERMIAH VANDERHELM

Daily Arts Writer

FILM NOTEBOOK

‘It’s going to 
happen,’ I 

realized then. 
‘My soul will 
detonate, and 
it will take my 
body with it.’