Allyssa Harris

Video/Film

This work brings awareness to the workplace discrimination black women face for their hair. In the 2019 CROWN Act was created, which stands for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair”. This piece aims to bring awareness to this issue as it is being debated at the federal level.

It allows viewers to see and hear the physical effects of straightening hair. A poster in the background states “__ is beautiful”, asking viewers to question the standards of beauty and professionality.

Amit Sharma

Video/Film

If learning is, by its very nature - satisfying, empowering, and a joyful experience then why is it that schools usually fail to create enthusiasm for it? Driven by this question, the movie -“You Matter”, foregrounds the voices of children at two schools, as they critique their current learning experiences. The movie prompts the viewers to examine the purported ideals about compulsory, or what some call coercive schooling practices - a powerful but often abused means of social justice.

Anusha Mamidipaka

Digital Art

"Redlined Voices" represent systemic racism. The background of each piece is a map of Detroit, Los Angeles, or Brooklyn, representing the redlined districts, predominantly African American areas systematically denied services by government agencies. Historic housing discrimination led to the largely segregated demographics of the city population, creating racial injustice (piece one), health inequality (piece two), economic inequality (piece 3), and other forms of oppression.

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Charlotte Bachelor

Prints and Multiples

After the murder of Breonna Taylor and subsequent capitalization of her name and image after her tragic death, this piece still calls us to action to protect all of our Black Sisters no matter what. My art relates to social justice because it's a called to defend as Malcolm X described "The Most Disrespected Person in America" aka the Black woman. It's a call to still defend black women even when our names aren't in the headlines. This is a call to protect our Black sisters at all times.

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China Tolbert

Prints and Multiples

It shows that black people are psychologically impacted in this world in order to conform to this system we live in today.

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Ella Signs

Video/Film

This video recaps the events that led to and have followed the August 2019 death of Elijah McClain. It includes body camera footage, police officer narration, news clips, and official documents. My hope is that this piece spreads awareness of the case, inspires public pressure, and leads to justice.

Ellie Baden

Digital Art

This piece, which was inspired by photographs of real protesters, focuses on the First Amendment rights to petition and assemble by showcasing some of the social movements that have influenced America in recent years. We must listen to those who rise up on behalf of equality, justice, and progress.

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Emma Stoolmaker

Mixed Media

Feminine Mystake is a collaged poster zine that highlights the gendered disparity within the art industry, analyzes historical contexts of woman as subjects and makers of art, and addresses the relationship between commercialism and the concept of femininity. By using imagery sourced from art history, literature, and legislation, I seek to reclaim the exploitation of women for aesthetic gain and form a call to action for other woman artists to saturate our contemporary visual culture.

Emma Stoolmaker

Painting

Nature in Balance is a diptych detailed with black India ink. What was first a historical study in Japanese nature prints took on new meaning as I learned more of the intersectionality between environmentalism and systemic racism. To restore true balance to human's relationship with the earth, a discussion of race and privilege must also be addressed in terms of resource allocation, wealth distribution, and actions that implement equity to those who are routinely affected by its degradation.

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Emma Stoolmaker

Photography

This reconfigured photo series serves as a disjointed self-portrait, comprised of twelve black and white photographs that have been digitally recombined to form abstracted figures. Rather than showing a complete form, the portraits fragment a commercialized shape to denounce our society’s general expectation of a woman’s body. I offer an assemblage of recognizable features that cannot be perfectly fitted together by the viewer, calling into question our notions of bodily normalcy and beauty.

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Jada Flowers

Installation

I See You In Me is an original art landscape that was created for viewers to see themselves as they stand before victims of gender & race-based violence. Symbolic messages were crafted to convey the artist’s emotions about the historical roots of racism & sexism still prevalent in our society. The ISM Project relates to social justice by providing healing and awareness through radical art. Viewers are inspired to raise consciousness and inspire activism by connecting with the symbolic messages.

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Jillie Gretzinger

Digital Art

This piece is a reflection of the war on female bodies and the weaponization of the feminine experience. Across the world, women’s reproductive rights, sexual agency, and bodily autonomy remain heavily legislated. Both in government offices and on the street, experiences unique to women, like menstruating, have been used to cite weakness and justify persecution. This piece suggest the opposite, that women have innate strength, and must be encouraged to continue their fight for enfranchisement.

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Justin Lee

Visual Art - Textiles

As we continue to chase after new clothes season after season, we forget about the negative impacts the fashion industry has on the environment, those involved in the manufacturing process, and the influence on consumers. Instead of supporting these unsustainable practices, this jacket was created with textile from unwanted, old garments to minimize waste and need for more. There is already so much waste. At times, we need to reevaluate our habits and how it might affect others.

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Laura Wood

Digital Art

A Black woman in a gay pride mask and BLM shirt stands up for her rights.

2020 has disproportionately impacted Black people. I wanted to draw and center a Black activist character showing her strength and setting her in a tranquil background representing the support of her community and hope for an equitable future.

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Lauren Slawin

Digital Art

The artwork that I am submitting is a video time lapse where I draw a portrait of George Floyd using “Justice for George”,”George Floyd”, and “I Can’t Breathe”. Playing over the video is a voice over of an essay that I wrote which touches on different types of police brutality and the black lives matter movement.

Lillian Young

Painting

The deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery brought up the term modern lynching, in reality lynching are not modern but the way we saw their deaths were. Snapped Chat highlights a morbid moment in American history of lynching postcards (1900s) using a modern system, Snap Chat. In a way this is a social reminder that racial injustice we see today has prevailed for hundreds of years, but the methods in which we interact with them is modern.

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Maddy Eischer

Garment

Modeled after the steadfast sunrise, “After the Storm” depicts the plethora of emotions experienced in 2020. The dark fabric represents anger and grief while the swirling color within the skirt acts as an intrusion of hope and joy. The rope around the sleeve serves as a metaphor for the oppression and injustices placed upon so many from BIPOC to members of the LGBTQ+ community, while the gold panel at the top showcases humanity's glorious emergence from tragedy and loss as we enter 2021.

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Maureen Miller

Painting

"Turning Tides" encompasses the social issues related to climate change. Climate change has already begun negatively affecting societies around the world, and people of low socioeconomic status will be the most disadvantaged because they will not have the necessary resources to cope with the negative effects. I also highlight the Black struggle (specifically in America) because systematic racism will create a barrier for assisting people affected by climate change in an equitable manner.

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Nicolei Gupit

Installation

Tracings asks viewers to reflect on the educational and socioeconomic divides that shape experience today. It uses a projected image, correction tape, and chalk to express segregation and inequalities in education. Small, broken chalk represents people with limited access to quality education.

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Olivia Furman

Sculpture

With each piece I explore my identity as a cis Black woman as well as my experiences with depression, dreams, healing, and my ancestral history by utilizing artful storytelling and critical self-reflection. Each piece is at once a piece of art, educational research, and an embodiment of my identity. My work seeks to sustain the lives of Black women and girls in school spaces by honoring and engaging our lives, literacies, embodied knowledges, and critical epistemologies.

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Reyila Hadeer

Photography

This photo collection is a figurative language representing what social justice means to me. As an Uyghur from northwest China, I have witnessed an ongoing struggle to escape from oppression that drives social justice all around the world. Wildflowers escape and bloom, despite the wire fence. It is a fugitive dream.

Social justice is not formed by top-down policies. Rather, it is shaped by inner necessity to escape despite policing. It is this very fugitive dream that makes justice possible.

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Rian Harlow

Drawing

A drawing of items associated with "getting ready" in the morning- clothes, personal care items, etc- that each have an intimate message involved in their depiction. These messages are a snapshot of what transgender individuals endure daily from society.

This piece highlights the judgment transgender people endure from cisgender people and the cisnormative structure of society, creating inherently inequitable life experiences. It is a reminder of what people have to sacrifice for their identity.

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Sarah Broida

Digital Art

This box is a representation of the richness and complexity of an individual’s identity. It overflows with personality and memories and beliefs. Identity is not a singular entity, but a combination of multiple aspects of life. Identity of an individual is often lost when put into data. Studies done on social justice can dehumanize those being affected by oppression and divide communities. People are more than numbers. They deserve to be heard as their whole selves.

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Sarah Broida

Digital Art

Intersectionality within social justice is not only a necessary consideration to be made when looking at equity, but an inescapable aspect of it. The woman I depicted is an essential worker, gay, a woman, and Black, but these aspects are only a part of her whole being. Statistics separate the person from the data, and desensitizes many to the various forms of oppression different groups face each and every day. People are complex, and that should be reflected in discussions of social justice.

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Sarah Dennis

Painting

An Equitable View depicts people, of many identities, sharing in the love of art. People in the museum are carrying various tools to help them enjoy the art equitably. Equality itself isn’t fair, as everyone is in different situations in life; yet, giving individuals what they need to succeed, like the tools in the painting, creates more equal opportunities. Social justice allows for people to enjoy the view no matter where they stand in life.

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Sarah Vamvounis

Visual Art - Mixed Media

Nuclear weapons are a human rights issue. Their existence is an environmental disaster, an exertion of toxic masculinity, an outgrowth of colonialism and white supremacy. Nuclear weapons disproportionately affect the health and well-being of marginalized communities. Through the zine, I hope to show how different activists have fought against nuclear weapons, state-sanctioned violence, and environmental injustice.

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Shane Heath

Video/Film

A Way Out is a short film about a black student who gets discriminated against by a white student on campus. Desperate to find a way out, he runs through "portals" across campus. This film relates to social justice because the white student denies the black student his social and human right to exist in the same space as herself. Essentially, this film shows how he escapes her discrimination.

Shane Heath

Video/Film

Innocent Bodies is a short film about two men who are pursued by unknown shooter. This film relates to social justice because I believe that the economic and systematic inequality is a problem in urban communities which results in poverty and crime. This films shows that the innocent lives taken are the ones that ultimately pay the price.

Sunawer Aujla

Painting

Created in June 2020, this piece encapsulates the rhythm of the galvanized Black Lives Matter movement. In recognizing police brutality and violence as symptoms of systemic racism, the synergy of the global community is harnessed toward realization of social justice and equality for all people. An imitation of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,” this painting juxtaposes powerful moments of defiance and unity, symbolizing the sense of community created by globalization of protest and activism.

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Will Langford

Mixed Media

"200 Years of Black Art" is a 10x10 inch mixed media collage and a deep, cultural dive. The imagery and iconography featured in this work include a broad array of African and African American artists, and cultural art forms.

Social justice requires that we not only see, but celebrate the myriad of artistic cultures around us. "200 Years of Black Art" aims to provoke discussions about the contributions of black artists and scholars to the social, cultural, and artistic spaces we occupy today.

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