This lesson should take you about 8 minutes to complete.
Activism often deals with polarised issues where people adopt ‘black and white’ positions without having the space to think about how complex and nuanced these issues actually are. Art can present things in ways that enable people to stand back from their entrenched positions, to consider new and more complex possibilities.
In the next clip, the artist Alice Maher talks about the Artist’s Campaign to Repeal the 8th Amendment, and in particular a street procession they staged in the city of Limerick just before the 2018 abortion referendum in Ireland. As you watch, consider the following question:
The words Alice uses when she talks about are the banners created for the procession and subsequent street marches are interesting: ‘Beautiful’, ‘Complex’ and ‘Associative Thinking’. She says that their aim was to distance themselves from the ‘Graphic’, ‘Fascist’, ‘Black and Red’ aesthetics of the anti-choice campaigns. The banners also evoked other collective movements in Ireland including Trades Unions and Suffragists banners. They used rich, materials such as silk and the images on the banners themselves were finely executed. The concept of being pro-choice was thus expressed in an entirely different way. It was associated with beauty, finery and fine detail, complexity, togetherness and solidarity. By resisting graphic simple slogans and being arrestingly beautiful, the banners evokes a more thoughtful response from the viewer. They provoke us to think about what they mean. Echoing Helena in the previous clip, Alice talks about how, moving through the centre of a conservative city with a procession that was both complex but also visually spectacular changed the space and changed the city. She says ‘It was amazing, the silence that ensued. I mean, people just stopped’. In that silence, people had a chance to think and reflect on their long-held views on abortion.