Artivist Build, St. Louis

Abstract

Elizabeth Vega confronts police outside the Ferguson Police Department, March 11, 2015. (Jeff Roberson / Associated Press) (Elizabeth Vega) Elizabeth Vega confronts police outside the Ferguson Police Department, March 11, 2015. (Jeff Roberson / Associated Press) Elizabeth Vega is a Chicana activist, poet, and community organizer committed to using art, writing, and food to facilitate emotional justice and healing in communities impacted by violence. She is cofounder of the direct-action group Artivists StL, a collective that creates protest art, and she is the founder of ART (Achieving Resilience Together) House, a collaborative community for activists and artists that provides affordable housing and grassroots programming. She has been active in protests around the country, from Ferguson to the US-Mexico border. Projection art: Artivists project officers’ racist social media posts onto police cars, June 3, 2019. The above projected post reads “Its [sic] nice to see a [sic] assbag that runs from the police to get wat [sic] he deserves.” (Richard Reilly) A public disruption at the St. Louis Symphony that made national news, October 4, 2014. Protesters unfurled banners and sang while the shocked audience looked on. (Aziza Binti) An ofrenda (offering) commemorating the souls of Michael Brown and deceased activists, August 2019. (Richard Reilly) Despair is suffering without meaning. Art in all forms is the heartbeat of any resistance movement. Issues are often too weighty for words. Art helps people process, create meaning, and find both the words and courage to resist. Art is a reminder of what we are fighting for—the opportunity to dream, create, collaborate, mourn deeply, and resist joyfully—rather than what we are fighting against. It calls out our collective humanity. Pieces like Mirrored Casket or public protest art, like the Requiem for Mike Brown, cut through rhetoric and invite us to engage our humanity in a tangible way. As artists in St. Louis, we learned much simply by doing. An art build emerged. We started making banners on sheets; it progressed to ripstop nylon, and our banners got bigger and we made them faster. We made props and shields and progressed to elaborate street theater protests. The shields represent both protection but are also a symbol to honor those for whom we fight. They evolved into works of art that represented and protected us—from Ferguson to Standing Rock to the ICE protests at the border. We became the change we sought. We learned to collaborate, work together, love each other, and plan direct actions during art builds. The work is always about decolonization. The most impacted always lead. Six years post Ferguson, I invest my time and energy only in direct actions that will make me laugh or make me cry because in a world where we are numbed out by the tragedy and inhumanity around us, the ability to feel and connect to our collective heart is powerful.