Fighting Tyranny With Art

And some celebratory back-patting

Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash

Thank You, Dear Reader

This month I’m celebrating one full year of writing here on

Substack

. It has been a wild and wonderful ride, that’s for sure. This time last year, after trying several platforms that just didn’t work, I went all-in for Substack. And I’ve never looked back.

I joined the platform with a fledgling mailing list of 500 art lovers, many of whom had signed up to receive my newsletter in the early lockdown days. In the last 12 months over 3,000 more readers have opted in to hear regularly from me. I’m so grateful to every single one of you for reading my emails and listening to my podcast.

One of the reasons my readership has grown is because more than 30

Substack Writers

are now recommending The Gallery Companion to their readers, including

'ART DELIVERY' from The Jealous Curator

Beyond Bloomsbury

The Matterhorn: intersections of literature & art

OUT OF THE BOX

Art Dogs

and

Yoga Culture

. Thank you to everyone who supports me in this way, including those I haven’t listed here. It means the world to me to know that other writers rate my writing.

My goal for the next 12 months is to develop a couple of other podcast ideas and to build my podcast audience alongside this Substack publication. If you enjoy my writing and podcast PLEASE share it with others you think would also like it. Word-of-mouth mentions to your friends are like gold to me, honestly.

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Looking Back

Over the next couple of editions I’ll be reflecting on the range of subjects I’ve covered in my first year of writing on Substack, starting with one from last November about the role of art in the 2022 Iranian uprising. Art was a tool in the box of strategies to keep momentum and spirits going during the initial stages of the protests, and it pointed to the incredible courage of young Iranians in the face of unrelentingly violent suppression from their government. Click below to read the story:

Now, ten months after the protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was murdered at the hands of the ‘morality police’ for not ‘correctly’ wearing a hijab, thousands of Iranians have been killed, tortured and imprisoned for their involvement in the uprising. The morality police are back on the streets enforcing the rules on what women wear.

The brutal government crackdown has successfully frightened people and reduced protesting on the streets, but the anger and dissent is bubbling under the surface. In a recent New York Times article a young Iranian woman talked about how empowered she felt when she saw a graffiti message scrawled on a wall that said ‘Move on but don’t forget’. It had a Mahsa Amini hashtag underneath it.

This kind of visible, defiant public messaging is one way to keep young people’s hopes alive in Iran. And artists in Western countries have been trying to keep the issue visible through public art projects in cities, so that people continue to talk about it and be aware that the fight is still ongoing even though it is no longer headline news.

Here are links to listen to this story via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or search for The Gallery Companion on any major podcast player.

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A Sneaky Peek Behind the Scenes

Last week I was a guest on the podcast Do Good and Do Well with Sarah Fox in which we talked about how I got started with The Gallery Companion, the people who have influenced me, the importance of engaging people in discussion on difficult subjects, and the value of paying attention to what artists communicate. You can listen to the podcast episode here or watch it on Youtube:

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In Case You Missed This…

My last article explores how artists have represented ideas about civil unrest and rioting. I discuss the recent protests over police brutality and harassment in the Parisian suburbs that quickly escalated into violence. And I consider recent academic research on what riots can tell us about what’s going wrong in society and what we need to put right.

All of this through the lens of three contemporary artists: the French street artist JR, the British film-maker John Akomfrah, and the American painter Faith Ringgold. Plus some wise words from Martin Luther King Jr.

Click on the link below to read all about it: