intervention poster

Ciara Riley -Fitts 

     My body, my choice, is a feminist slogan that has been used in several nations, usually about issues of bodily autonomy and abortion. Many protesters today explain the fact to mind your own business regarding abortions and women's decisions. When I went to a protest to listen to the women, they had valid points about whether or not abortions should be considered murder or still be considered a medical procedure. However, I agree that the government should have no say-so over having the decision of any medical procedure given to women for their health mentally and physically. The argument is a one-sided explanation that abortions are meant for women who do not want their children, but they can be for women whose body is physically unable to bear the child full term. Many today do not look at the outcome of what could happen if making abortions illegal become a way of law. Women are gentle creatures, and when they are forced to keep or go through something, that will raise a massacre of damaging issues like suicide, illegal abortion, depression, or even death for those who can not go full term. I just want the government to understand that you will hurt more than do good if you put an act to do with a woman's physical, mental, and verbal beliefs. "She assured everyone on the tour that we do not have to subscribe to anyone else's idea of success." (Kimberly drew). Everyone has their own way and path. When it comes to this subject yet forces the association with a stern word like murder. For my poster, I will out flyer say, "mind your own biology giving the force front of what I tend to do with my body should pertain the government. 

Intervention Poster for the Endangered species

Throughout the years the temperatures have been increasing. With the temperatures rising the waters are rising as well. Because of the glaciers melting, ice caps melting, the oceans are growing. They might not be rising as fast as they may seem but whenever this is brought up it makes a lot of people uncomfortable due to the fact that people aren't being self aware. Because their day to day doesn’t consist of anything out of the ordinary, such as littering or dealing with the animals themselves, they think they aren’t doing anything but we need to. It's our job to protect the only planet we can live on and protect the animals that live on it as well. They can’t speak so we must speak for them. Polar bears rely heavily on sea ice for traveling, hunting, resting, and mating and they are such beautiful creatures above all. But because of ongoing and possible loss of their sea ice habitat, climate change, is a threat to polar bears. Polar bears were listed as a threatened endangered species in 2008. We are now in 2021 and as of now have prolonged the extinction to our best abilities. As the polar bears sea ice habitat recedes, polar bears are spending longer periods on land, where they often go to areas where humans live. In order for everything to live, happy bears… humans… animals we can’t live in the same place as one that’s crazy. So if we don’t want to live with them we need to save them and protect their homes. As of now I don’t think it’s totally IMPOSSIBLE but at the rate we’re going it’s hard to say. With that being said one of the quotes that really ties in with this is by Siegler it states them saying, “The question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be.”( Siegler) This alone is a powerful quote but like said before a lot of people don’t think they are at fault we need people that are going to put that aside and help the endangered whither or not it’s their fault. The problem is happening right infront of our eyes and we are the only ones that can stop it it only takes one person, one extremist, to make a change for good. 

 

Outside on a tree on NJCU campus for all students to see.

Intervention Poster

     I feel strongly about the growing disparity of the 1% in comparison to the rest of society. Around 70% of all wealth in the U.S. .This core issue intrinsically ties into many other issues such as discrimination against deprived groups of people, environmental destruction, and general corruption. Finding a way to crack down on these wealth criminals is an important way of maintaining some form of balance in the meantime. With the current protests regarding John Deere, and many other workers are realizing the value of their labor. “The Tute Bianche first appeared in Italy in 1994 in the midst of a social setting in which the “mass laborer,” who had played a central role in the 1970s in production and in labor struggles, was gradually replaced in the transition to precarious post-Fordist means of production.”

 In my research of protests in the past, I find that an effective slogan or phrase can be very helpful in spreading an idea. For instance Barbra Kruger’s work has the common through-line of a clear but provocative statement. Kruger discusses the need to understand the intersectionality of these issues in her interview with Art21 magazine. “There is always a connection between issues of race and gender and class. They don’t ever exist separately, and people who feel that they live them separately are really not understanding the multiple forces that have impacts on their identity and their lives.”.  A good slogan should be instantly recognizable in intention, and meaning. “Black Lives Matter” is effective in it’s boldness. 

Using a pig as shorthand for the obscenely wealthy is nothing new but effective nonetheless. Pig imagery has existed for a long time so utilizing that to make the piece easy to digest. Using a cartoon style pig with a top hat and teacup  to make it more palatable, and inviting.  

Foster, I. (2018, January 28). Resisting reductivism & breaking the bubble: An interview with Barbara Kruger. Art21 Magazine. Retrieved October 20, 2021, from http://magazine.art21.org/2018/01/26/resisting-reductivism-breaking-the-bubble-an-interview-with-barbara-kruger/. 

intervention poster

For this project, I chose to do  end Gentrification.

I did this because I think its crazy how over the past few years the cost of housing in NJ has sky rocketed. Better houses have been built and even better parks, roads are being reconstructed and more resources being provided. Even new schools have been built but at what price? the former Jersey City inhabitants for example are being pushed out of their homes due to the high cost of living. The rent has skyrocketed. The new inhabitants are mostly people who have also been pushed out of NY due to the high cost of living there.

as John Berger says in his book ways of seeing, "Money is life..... those who  lack the power to spend money become literally faceless." This deeply relates to how those that earn low wages are being ignored and opportunities being created for those that can afford it.

In this poster, If neighborhoods are nice then no one should be pushed out. I wrote the poster as a protest against Gentrification and used different colors to show that every person should be included.

I also included # end gentrification just to give people and idea of what am talking about as sometimes people do not even realize what gentrification is....I didn't until I heard the word and searched it up.

Fight for What's Right - Poster

Fight for What's Right

The climate of the world we live in today doesn't allow for activism to flourish the way it should. Those who fight onwards, to reach their goals, make the world a better place, are ostracized, beaten down, and are made to believe that what they want, the very thing everybody should want -- Peace, is impossible to achieve. Despite this, there are dedicated people who make sure that no matter how harsh the going gets, they will never stop fighting. Ever. I am inspired by those who put their lives on the line to support a cause, and while I've never been in their shoes, this intervention is, for now, a metaphorical toe dip into protest/activist art.

An Invisible Hand by The Water

When I first introduced myself in this course, I made it clear that film was something I enjoyed analyzing for the sake of discovering activist messages. Photography is no different, and as one can tell, I wanted my piece, titled Fight for What's Right, to bask in the sun on campus. The Black Lives Matter symbol of the raised fist was my immediate thought, the iconography gripping me since I first saw it, and given the opportunity to express myself visually, the plague of racism was the cause I knew I had to cover in this assignment.

Leafy Display

John Berger's talk on images and how we react to them was another inspiration behind why I chose to do the piece the way I did. The formation of four fists, one invisible, with the implication that someone may put their fist there. The piece is interactive, and while I have no images of anyone making use of that, it is an image I'd like to capture one day. John Berger said in his book, Ways of Seeing, that "One may remember or forget these messages but briefly one takes them in, and for a moment they stimulate the imagination by way of either memory or expectation."(129)

A Piece in The Sun

The Black Lives Matter imagery is something that we will continue to see for years to come, and one that I will continue to support as that time blows ahead. The photography aspect of it is one that media loves to use in news reports or online reports, depending on where someone looks. In a recent reading of Signs of Resistance, we saw further how visuals can apply to the world as we know it. In 1955, Emmett Till was murdered, and the Civil Rights Movement started. In Signs, Siegler writes "The anger and outrage over Emmett Till's murder was one of the catalysts that sparked the Civil Rights Movement. And it was all because of a photo."(60)

I will continue to fight for what's right because my skillset allows me to do it in a specific way, one that others may not be able to. This is something I love to see in signage at protests, a personal, handmade production that is meant to show that the pen and paper can really make a difference... This how I fight, and others will continue to fight until the end of time.

 

Intervention Poster

For my poster, I really wanted to talk about how women are treated. But more specifically about how women's bodies are looked at sexually along with their age and choice of clothing. Since we were young, we were told to cover up our shoulders and to not have our skirts pass our fingertips in school. This rule is a dumb one due to people being distracted anyway without the need of telling females to cover up. When women are even covered up with an oversized sweats and hoodie for example, they were still victims of sexual assault. What we wear isn’t consent or means that “we are asking for it” since we wear want for ourselves and not for others so it doesn't give others the right to do stuff without communicating it through us first. Also, if the men were ever taught to watch what they say and not think so provocatively towards women and actually respect them, then this wouldn’t be an issue. They sexualize everything when it comes to women like boob sizes, butt size, thick thighs for example. Even if our nipple is showing through our t-shirt that everyone has, is even sexualized.

In John Berger’s book, “Ways of Seeing” it states, “Publicity increasingly uses sexuality to send any product or service” (144). This quote relates to how in most commercials that involve selling a product usually includes women half-dressed due to it catching more people’s attention to want to buy it. Even if the product didn’t include those women, then the products would still sell the same way. Another quote but from Bell Hooks in “Understanding Patriarchy” states, “Patriarchy is a political-social system that insist that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed week, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence” (18). Men have been designed from birth into thinking that they can do whatever they want and treat women however without any consequences. Along with that, they see women as something that they can control and someone to take advantage of when they don’t get their way.

The quotes on the poster are some that were either said to me or heard from others that I thought were important to include since others may have also heard it. One of the pictures on the poster, I feel so strongly about due to hearing it from my parents before. Back then I didn’t see it as them trying to protect me but them trying to control me but in reality, they just didn't want me to be sexualized from men at such a young age.

Poster outside my house on the stairs.

The poster close-up.

intervention Poster Project

 Brian Vargas

My project is based on pollution. People on daily are know to litter and just throw their garbage on the ground without a single thought of what that can cause to the earth. People sometimes can be very lazy and throw trash on the ground instead of just walking to the nearest trashcan. Many people don’t understand that trash left on the ground and not put in its proper place can lead to the whole planet being polluted. This happens all over the world and in other parts of the world, the pollution can be extremely bad. There can be papers, bottles and even garbage left out on the street. This can also affect the wildlife in the area as they can think that the garbage is food. This can also attract rodents and insects. Nobody likes insects and rodents in their homes or in their streets. These creatures sometimes can bring diseases, viruses and even mold. Many rodents can also be infected with parasites such as tapeworms which are very dangerous. It is up to us humans to come together to take care of our surroundings and our planet. This is our only planet, and we should do our best to come together to take care of it. We shouldn’t let it go to waste by doing something such as leaving garbage on the street. We could easily take care of our planet by making sure we are throwing out our garbage and cleaning up when we see garbage out in the streets, we can pick it up and put it in the proper place. Reminding each other to pick up trash can also be beneficial because it can remind people about what can happen if leave too much garbage and trash lying around. 

A quote that inspired my project was from Civil Rights by Siegler “The question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be… The South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” (Siegler)This quote inspired me to because it is a message to the world that we need extreme activists who will be able to change the world’s view about a world problem. Another quote that help inspire my project was by John Berger “Publicity is the culture of the consumer society.”(Berger 139).  This quote helped me understand that publicity is something that everyone uses to get a point across or to try and sell something. Publicity is the best way to get people informed about pollution and the problems it can cause worldwide. 

Picture posted in an apartment building

                                                Picture posted inside near apartment unit on 3rd floor