Art as Activism

by jill frey

Creating beauty and exploring personal and collective themes of identity, commentary, narrative, and transformation through art.

What to do when hit hard by a second pandemic, equally loaded with stigma, discrimination, bias, and disparity? Some might suggest digging deep into resilience or taking to the streets with public outcry. Others lobby for research, funding, policy changes, and media awareness. All solid strategies with expected outcomes. It’s what we’ve always done.

Here’s my take. Lean into beauty. With COVID currently cloaking our landscape, I call upon art to see us through. As a staff member at PCAF (previously known as Pierce County AIDS Foundation), Tacoma, WA for the past 27 years, I can account for my fair share of loss, lamentation, and outrage. And while I applaud and appreciate my nonprofit’s cutting edge efforts of prevention, care, and advocacy, I land smack dab in the arena of art for what’s needed to end the HIV epidemic.

Read the op-ed at: https://www.poz.com/article/art-activism

 

Previous featured artists have included:

• Don Thompson – local, nature photography
• Tacoma Urban Sketchers – pen/ink or watercolour sketches of local urban scenes
• Erin Wetzel – personified animals, quirky folk art
• Katie Dean – original floral woodblock prints