I collaborated on this video with Regine, Leo, and our friends from Justicia 4 Migrant Workers.
Only snippets from this incredible journey are covered in this short video. The events connected the present realities of migrant workers to the history of unfreedom, as seen in the experiences of the anti-slavery underground railway movement and with indigenous peoples’ struggles against colonialism.
A follow-up to last year’s historic Pilgrimage to Freedom, which we also produced a video for.
Graffiti stencils in London, Ontario via Toban Black
Playlist: Pledge of Allegiance / PJ Harvey “The Glorious Land”
On my first day of school, I remember being introduced to my teacher, Ms. Witch, dressed in all black. When music started playing from the ceiling and everyone froze, I was mystified. What sorcery was this?
Some of my teachers expected us to sing this song, or to faintly mouth the words, but we always had to observe the anthem obediently, if only in silence.
Hearing the music confirmed that you were late, that your body was not where it should be. Watchful figures guarding hallways stopped us in our tracks, holding us with their stares, adding to our delays, to make sure we observed the anthem.
Why was it so important to them? What did it mean?
For one thing, respecting the anthem is part of upholding respect for “the rules” and rulers who govern schools. Otherwise, anarchy would break out.
And then there’s the national part of the anthem. There’s a reason why they make 4-year-olds rise at attention and profess “true patriot love” before we even know what that means.
Playing the national anthem in schools is part of nation-building, or upholding respect for “the rules” and rulers who govern Canada.
***
As activists and designers working with social movements, many of our struggles require us to challenge “the rules” and rulers who govern Canada.
Switching formats from audio to visual, I’d like to look at a different nationalist symbol – the Canadian flag – and the way it gets used in graphic design.
Flags: Rainbow, Marijuana, Black, Tar Sands
When I look at simple graphics that riff on the flag, I notice two kinds of dynamics: seeking inclusion by wrapping yourself or your subject in the flag; and raising critical ideas by showing the flag in a new light.
In the first pair of images (top left + right), the association with the flag is viewed as benign, while with the second pair (bottom left + right) the image of Canada is visibly tarnished.
However, all of these images share a common limitation. Not one grasps things at the root. How can we talk about nation-building without acknowledging the colonial history and present of Canada?
So-called “Native Canadian” flag, unknown origin; 2010 Canadian Olympic hockey jersey logo by Debra Sparrow (Musqueam) with Nike (not a flag, but may as well be one)
Even images that engage with (some might say co-opt) indigenous art and identity can fail to do this. Perhaps intended as an inclusive gesture, or as a powerful corrective, my concern is that this is actually a form of assimilation, of subsuming indigenous nations under Canada in order to extinguish land and treaty rights that are rooted in nation-to-nation relationships.
Ultimately, the Canadian flag is part of an ambitious re-branding exercise. The goal is to consolidate the emotional pull of nationalism to avoid the unsightly reality of Canada’s colonialism.
***
So just because you use the Canadian flag in your design, does that mean you are supporting colonialism?
Aren’t there good reasons to use the Canadian flag? The flag is an instantly recognizable symbol. It provides political and geographic specificity. It helps us name power so people can understand what we’re talking about.
Let’s look at some examples.
By Afuwa Granger as part of NOII-Van’s People’s History of Kanada Poster Project
No Borders & Occupy: The Game of Colonialism by Erin Marie Konsmo, Métis/Cree Indigenous feminist and artist
500 Years of Indigenous Resistance, cover and pg. 61, by Gord Hill, member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation on the Northwest Coast
Illustration by Emily Davidson for The Dominion
Photoshop WTF: A Short Guide to Using Photoshop for Political Posters (view/download below)
My first zine! Or mini-zine. Inspiration came out of Radical Design School workshops and my Popular Education class with Yogi. I followed this style of template, but I used an actual zine as a guide instead – a cool double-sided one by Kenji Tokawa on silk screening that a friend gave me.
I’m looking forward to getting some feedback so I can find out if it’s useful and/or if people hit snags. It’s super-short, but hopefully once people give it a try, they’ll be interested in learning more. I’d be open to expanding it in the future, or taking on other subjects, or other folks taking on their own subjects with the WTF theme. Requests?
Migrant Justice Political Graphics: No One Is Illegal – Toronto (2003-2009)
I just finished making a batch of these booklets. When I originally designed this back in 2010, I didn’t have the resources to get it printed, so it’s nice to see this through, even though it’s been a while (and I wonder if I would have done this differently now).
I haven’t updated the content, but I did design a new cover and I included the design as a mini-poster centrefold that you can take out (fun!). One thing I learned from this process is that if you’re going to make a booklet, make sure the page count is a multiple of 4! Also, not all staples are created equal, something to keep in mind when you’re stapling through multiple pages.
Fittingly, the multi-lingual cover image was inspired by – or maybe more accurately, lifted from – the banner at the bottom of page 24, so it’s nice to have them together here.
You can download a copy of the booklet here (select the booklet printing option to get it to print correctly). And check out the digital archive on Flickr here.
I made this poster for May Day here in Toronto. I wanted to try my hand at a 5.5×17 inch format, basically two posters to an 11×17 tabloid page, while thinking about all of those narrow electrical poles we try to put our posters up on.
It uses very minimal text, which has some obvious advantages and limitations – it allows the design to be visually striking and clearer from a distance, but doesn’t tell you a whole lot about what May Day is or why it matters.
And yes, that’s my fist in the image. One of my goals is to use my hand in more of my work, but I thought that meant drawing! And I want to locate myself in my work more, in terms of why I’m doing it. In this case, I’ve been helping to organize May Day marches with No One Is Illegal – Toronto since 2007.
The original idea was not to have a singular image, but a series, so we could scan a bunch of people’s fists, and put those into the posters. I like the variation of a series and the possibility of people putting up posters seeing themselves in the image and feeling a sense of ownership.
This poster below is by M1M, one of the three groups – along with No One Is Illegal – Toronto and (de)Occupy Toronto – trying to help coordinate the planning of the day this year, and it gives you a sense of some of the collective demands.
If you’re interested in seeing more May Day designs, the folks at Occuprint have been sharing new posters almost every day.
See you in the streets!
Update: My friend Hussan made a composite of Toronto May Day Posters!
I just made this quick graphic in support of Toronto Public Library Workers, who are going on strike today.
The font I used didn’t have an ampersand or plus sign, but fortunately there was an ampersand sitting right there in the image! That’s Lincoln Cushing’s Visons of Peace & Justice (2007), which is about Inkworks Press in Berkeley.
For Print:
I worked for the public library when I was high school, it was my first job ever. Even though I was part of the library union then, I didn’t actually know what that meant, and it never made itself known to me. Too bad, because I think it could have made a big difference for me and other younger workers.
After working in different union and non-union jobs, my idea of what a union is has definitely evolved over time. When I was working at a library again, this time while at university, my definition of union was what my closest co-workers and I were willing to do to support each other – and I actually felt quite supported.
I’m sure we benefited in many ways from having a legally-binding collective agreement and other formal supports in place, but as “casual” (meaning we were forced to re-apply for our jobs each new term) part-time workers who sometimes had supervisors who were part of the union, we were closer to the bottom wrung of the ladder, and working in such close proximity, we were the union, responsible for negotiating the nature of our working conditions every shift.
I wanted to share an array of images that I’ve gathered which use the fist & barbed wire as a symbol. For a change, I decided to try making an animated GIF. It was actually pretty easy, so look forward to more animations in the future.
From Olivier Razac’s Barbed Wire: A Political History (2002)
I just finished a wonderful course on the ABCs of Letterpress with Akemi at Kozo Studio. I highly recommend it, it’s something I looked forward to every week, and was a great change of pace from all of the digital dependency in my work/life.
My first project (above), was printed with wood type on a Vandercook SP15. The two pieces below were also printed on the SP15, but with LEGO instead of wood or metal type!
I’ll definitely miss it — and will try to come back and rent some time in the future.
Below: Setting wood type by hand (always backwards), putting leading between characters, and furniture to keep the whole composition in place. Photo c/o Kozo Studio
