Political Art & Telling It Like It Is

Graffiti art I spotted in a Birmingham, UK, parking garage

This is a photo I took in a random parking garage in Birmingham, UK. I was particularly struck by the way its paint is flaking off from the center of his ugly, yelling mouth. It shocked me to see us (by which I mean the US) portrayed in political art like this in a working class part of England. But it shouldn't. Because the truth is, we continue to hold enormous sway in the larger global imagination. They ARE, in fact, looking at what we do. 

My partner and I spent months traveling in the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and The Netherlands, even as the EU itself, and several of its member states, were waging campaigns and casting votes of their own. You've heard of "Super Blooms" - years of riotous wildflower displays after especially high rainfall years? Well, 2024 was a "Super Election" year due to the sheer number of world governments undergoing elections. A pivotal year in world history. 

Everywhere we went, I took photographs of political art that I saw in the streets. Cries of people like you and me, sick to death of being treated like playthings by people who mouth intentions to stand up for us and to protect freedom. It felt important to notice all the ways that fascism and anti-democratic forces were rising all over the world, and to try to help us organize ourselves to stop it.

In the midst of it, the SCOTUS decision that gave Donald Trump full license to do whatever he desires with the presidency came down. The gloves came off. I wrote in my journal:

I’m thinking of the climate impacts of the leaders who get elected this year, worldwide - this crew of “super-heros” that we are sending to do the job of turning the whole world around, of changing how we do absolutely everything from growing food, to how we work, and even how we define what a “good life” looks like. I think we need to take that very seriously. Though in reality, WE are actually the super heroes who will do this work, of course. We need so, so many more of us, in the organizing, going forward each day, toward that new world. I wonder if we can we even begin to imagine what is actually on offer if we are able to elect people who will be movable to our platforms.

Snapped this one in Freetown Christiania, an intentional community and commune in Copenhagen. It began over 40 years ago as a squatted military base.

So what the hell does all of that mean? Like, in an embodied way?

Well I hiked across Ilkley Moor, and learned about birds that live specifically on Moors, like the plover and curlew, and how they are dependent on those peat lands which are better at sequestering carbon than even trees are. And in Sweden, Kevin noticed that a flock of Magpies was “tending to” one of their own who had died. He watched them grieve their friend while he drank morning coffee over the course of several days. And at our flat in Birmingham, a pigeon flew directly into our window and died. He was going too fast, or made a miscalculation, or got distracted, and left a little smear of the last of his life-stuff on our window. And I rushed to look down and see what had happened, and he was opening his mouth in an exaggerated way and clenching his little talons back and forth and I could tell I was watching him die and that that was important: to witness it. And he did. Not 10 minutes later, a neighborhood cat had torn into him, spreading feathers across the grass. I say all of this because it’s clear that this thing called life could end at any moment. And it does, and it is. For so many people, and beautiful creatures every day. Political art like the mural below attempts to publicly mourn what is erased from public policy.

Taken on the streets of Malmö, Sweden, where the local Palestinian community had gathered to sing their grief near a park we were visiting

Cuz we know just how wrong things can go if we let fascism have its way. We also went to Berlin, y’all. We saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (and so much more) commemorating the travesty that was headquartered there not even a century ago. It was an experience that is truly indescribable. We wandered my favorite city while pausing each time we came upon a “stumble stone” - small pieces of social justice artwork - that are golden cobblestones engraved with the names of people who were taken from various locations around Berlin, and killed in the Holocaust.

RIP, Emil Bab. Your memory is, indeed, a blessing.

Again, from my journal:

Right now, there is a real threat of some far-right German fucks getting into office. It’s terrifying. The UK is voting on July 4th. Hopefully Labour will win. But Sweden has a far-right president. And Italy, where we are headed early next year, has the most dictatorial leader since Mussolini. And she’s a white woman! All of these “leaders” are talking about immigration, blaming the victims of colonialism and the environmental crisis largely caused by it. Just like in the US. To say it plainly: we are trying to prevent the end of the world.

This says, “BERLIN AGAINST NAZIS we are many.” Beauty.

So why, when all of these terrible things keep happening, should we even be fighting for anything to be better at all? For me, the answer is because I love the world, of course. Because I was recently listening to a female-led business podcast on how to run a lovely, right-sized, values-aligned business without having to use social media. Because I can be here, doing this, working, and fighting for the world I want, even while I live into the world I want before it’s born. Because my partner and I love walking to get our groceries from the little zero waste store in Birmingham, and from the organic butcher next door. We love waking up slow, moving our bodies, doing work with our clients, donating to electoral base-building organizations, making voter calls, and then going for evening walks every day while the sun just wants to keep on shining cuz it’s summer, y’all! I am in deep, deep love with this whole “living” thing. I can’t believe how much I love it.

I have a particular call to help white women wake up to the power we have to impact elections, and much more than that, to be co-conspirators with our siblings of every stripe in shifting things in a good direction. I’m thinking about the racism that too-often holds us back from loving our lives. Because it ruins everything it touches. It curdles. It confuses. It stops the plenty from being shared, abundantly. The brilliant Puerto Rican, Jewish poet and activist, Aurora Levins Morales recently put it this way:

For the US left, presidential elections are about choosing an opponent, not a leader. We do not have any candidate available to us who will not be complicit with genocide anywhere in the world that imperialist domination demands it for the benefit of rampant capitalism.  We do not have any candidate who will take the kind of action we need to avert climate catastrophe.  We’re not choosing between leaders.  We are the leaders.  We’re choosing who to fight. 

It’s time we face the task at hand and do what we must to defeat this brazen attack on - let’s be real about it - the great majority of us. Ask yourself: How can I do that in a way that honors this one, beautiful life that I’ve got? And if you’re a self-identified white woman, please join me in one of my groups. We want you there. We need each other to be moving boldly, together. It’s time.

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