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Defund the Police!
Defund the Police!
Why divest from the current system
of law enforcement?
ABOUT
Beginning with the slave police and continuing today, police brutality against Black and brown people in the US has led to senseless deaths that reached a tipping point with the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Citizens across the US are demanding that police department budgets be reduced or eliminated and that money be used to reinvest in communities of color that have been historically over-policed in order to support social services, housing, education, youth programs, and other community programs. Artists have joined the ‘defund the police’ movement calling on art institutions to break their connection to police departments and by creating artworks that address police brutality.
Students used a wide range of media and materials to explore how police violence affects all communities, reimagining humanity and safety for the 21st century.
Workshop Overview &
Workshop Overview &
Students' Artistic Responses
Students' Artistic Responses
Why do we have police? We began Visionary Studios considering the fundamental question of why we have police, from different theoretical perspectives. We learned some the history of policing in the U.S., seeking connections to the present day. Students created visual representations of how they view the police through their eyes, which led us to a discussion about the aesthetics of policing.
Alina C.
Sammi J.
memorializing those we've lost
memorializing those we've lost
For this assignment, students created a work of art that memorialized someone or something lost to police violence that has personal significance for them. We considered how artists have responded to police violence over the last 60 years, looking at artists such as Dread Scott, Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas, and Amy Sherald. Together we thought about the politics of mourning, and what it looks like to memorialize respectfully.
Victoria G.
Celia E.
Jelenny L.
Alina C.
Media Interventions: How does the media shape our understanding of policing & police violence? During this week, students explored the role of the media in constructing ideologies about race and identity, policing, and criminality, and we engaged with a timeline of important media moments and figures. Inspired by artist Alexandra Bell's Counternarratives series, students visually intervened onto an article of their choice, critiquing the original narratives and creating new meanings.
Reimagining Community Safety: What does it mean to be safe? As a class, we considered what safety means to us, and thought about how we could build community models of safety outside of the police. What might accountability to harm look like outside of punishment? We asked students to create their own posters to place in their communities that focused on the idea of community safety. We introduced poster design and the role of protest banners, looking at artists like and Aram Han Sifuentes and Cauleen Smith.
Jelenny L.
Celia E.
Alina C.
Victoria G.
Sammi J.
Defunding the Police: Where and how should resources be invested in our communities? For our last project, students created a collective zine exploring the theme of Defund the Police. We discussed funding, city power, and the basics of the budgeting process and budget activism, and considered how we would build a stronger and better NYC. Within the zine, students also engaged the questions, how do artists envision & build alternatives to policing? & what role can radical imagination play in art and activism?
Meet the students
Meet the students
My name is Victoria. I’m 16 years old and I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’m a total nerd and really love things like graphics, anime, comics and I think that’s probably where I fell in love with art. I’ve always loved art and social justice and ethics issues were always really interesting to me. So this class seemed like the obvious choice to make. Art can be really powerful and I’m really glad I could participate in this class. Nothing cooler than leaving a mark.
As a teenager living in NYC, art and activism are very present in my everyday life. The project ‘Defund The Police’ was the perfect combination of those two things. I aspire to keep educating people on both social issues and art, just like NYU Visionary Studios did for me. I encourage people to continue expressing themselves through art, which is our greatest gift.
I’ve been privileged enough to grow up in a bubble believing that the police and justice system protect its citizens, but in the last few years, my perspective on these systems has changed drastically. Defunding the police is the first step to a more just justice system in America and I’ve learned so much in the past weeks about how we can ignite this change. We all have voices that deserve to be heard, whether that's in the form of graphics, music, makeup, or etc. Art is just one form of expressing our concerns and demanding change and I’m so grateful to have been a part of this workshop to explore how art can amplify our voices.
Meet the instructors
Meet the instructors
erin reid
erin reid
erin reid (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator from the SF Bay Area. Her work is primarily motivated by power, identity, and history, and she loved having this opportunity to explore the possibilities of police and prison abolition through artmaking.
Kayla Espinal
Kayla Espinal
Kayla Espinal (she/her) is an artist and educator from the Bronx, NY. Her work embraces and celebrates the community in which she lives, and creates art that reflects her own life and experiences.
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