16 Comments
Jul 5Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

I've just finished listening to all three episodes of the Beyond Contagion podcast - thanks for sharing. It's really clarified a lot for me in terms of the public / political / media responses to riots. Also thanks for the intro to JR's work. He has done so many amazing projects over his career, really enjoyed looking through all the videos on his website. He's brilliant. I've learnt so much from you today, Victoria. Thanks.

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One of my favorite MLK quotes is: A riot is the language of the unheard.

It's a rich statement.

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Jul 5Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

Another great read, thank you 💥 Curators need to give a platform for thought-provoking, dialogue-initiating art; To choose not to support this often outsider artform is, I think, to be part of the problem.

The dismissive argument that "'Protest art' isn't proper Art'" is cheap. As you show, art can be sensitively beautiful on purely a visual level, AND politically potent.

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I’ve also read another thoughtful post this morning on Substack about both this sad death and the reason behind the riots -- linking below.

JR’s art is a beautiful form of passive resistance (on the words of MLK). I wonder what will make these politicians listen. Art is one way to attempt for them to feel the meaning of having this existence in France. Really interesting to see the art from the 60s and the way it affects us all. Thanks for writing about this.

https://open.substack.com/pub/hannahmeltzer/p/refusal-to-comply?r=rtf40&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

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