Visual Resistance

This site is a year old today. Our first post — a probably too-general call for political art of all stripes — was posted on October 30, 2004. The collective had just regrouped after a long summer spent working full-time on the No RNC Poster Project, a campaign that involved 50,000 printed posters, 10,000 stickers, and enough grunt work to make pissing off Republicans a full-time job for a few of us. We had very little idea what to do next, and we mostly made it up as we went along.

This site was started with the idea of giving voice to those artists who seek more than name recognition, and of opening a space for critical discussion on street art and political activism. In the past year, the street art movement has only continued to gain momentum, while the wave of activism that preceded the Republican National Convention crashed and receded following Bush’s electoral victory and now finally shows signs of reviving. As a collective, we’ve had to struggle to find our place between these two worlds. In the past year, we’ve been lucky to meet and work with people we admire and respect, so thanks to the Toyshop Collective, Madagascar Institute, Not An Alternative, Time’s Up!, Josh MacPhee, Street Art Workers, AI Firefly, and the Grassroots Media Coalition for being gracious giants.

The question now is: what next? This site has grown by leaps and bounds, adding new features and slowly getting more regular in its updates, drawing 10,000 readers or so a month. Thanks to all of you for keeping us going! What do you want to see? We’ve had a few voices noting the stagnation of street art’s “manifesto” — how can we push these ideas further, explore new territory? One of my unrealized goals for the site has been to get more contributors — interested people from outside our collective — anyone who wants to step up for Year 2 should drop us a line. What’s missing from the site, and more importantly, from the real world art/politics scene? Shoot us an email or drop a note in the comments. Let’s keep talking.