THE #2020 AWAKENING PROJECT WITH FOR FREEDOMS.

About the project from The Guardian.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ DAY: THE LATEST US BILLBOARD PROJECT TO SEND A MESSAGE

ACROSS THE US, ARTIST-DESIGNED BILLBOARDS ARE SET TO SEND AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO COINCIDE WITH AN IMPORTANT DAY OF REMEMBRANCE

…Today, the artist-founded initiative For Freedoms is launching a country-wide billboard project honoring the [Indigenous People’s] day, featuring more than 50 different billboards designed by artists including Ai Weiwei, Marilyn Minter and Shepard Fairey in everywhere from South Carolina to Montana and Alaska. It’s what they call The 2020 Awakening, and is inspired by the Wide Awakes, a group of 19th-century activists who helped cultivate the youth vote.

“Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an attempt to change the narrative by changing the narrators,” said Claudia Peña, the executive director of For Freedoms. “We’re showcasing artists who ask provocative questions, and in this, the narrative of the 2020 election will involve conversation between artists and the residents who see these billboards, mostly in rural areas.”

Seven artists in the country-wide project speak about what today means to them, their billboards and voting next month….

Amelia Winger-Bearskin‘s artist statement:

“During the global pandemic, an increasingly contentious political landscape and the surge of energy from re-dedicating ourselves to racial justice in America, I’ve witnessed my incredible peers balance fear, bravery, a commitment to family, and to local and global communities of underrepresented people. I’ve seen them create art in response and build new systems of support. But among my friends, especially my female-identifying friends and especially those of us who are mothers, many of us are being asked to do the undoable daily. I wanted a message to remind the world that through change-making, we can’t let ourselves become kindling. I don’t want us to burn out. All the crises in the world today are asking us to run more and more current through the little filaments of our minds and souls, but when those go out, does it leave the world a brighter place? Of course, it doesn’t. The social, economic, physical, political, intellectual demands of a movement must bring with it the great care for and value of each human being who is part of it.”

Pioneer Works is selling the official stickers for the project, all proceeds go toward supporting artist residencies at Pioneer Works, where she was once a very happy artist in residence, from 2015-2017.