Since the January 21, 2017, Women’s March in Washington, DC, I have been actively engaged as a street art anthropologist, collecting photographs of signs from mass demonstrations in response to the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath, an ongoing wake-up call for the future of American democracy. Some of these images found their way onto social media feeds for NY Indivisible, through my own platforms and blogs, and into course material generated at the New School, where I teach undergraduate media studies courses. After the election, some of these students asked in all earnestness, “Are we going to be okay?” My response was to provide easily accessible voter registration links, like TurboVote1 and advised them to join the marches, call their representatives, and engage in the democratic process [Image 1].
This photo essay draws upon three years of participation in myriad marches in New York City and...
University of California Press