Shirien Damra | |
---|---|
Born | c. 1987 (age 35–36) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
Education | DePaul University |
Occupation(s) | illustrator, designer, social movement activist |
Website | www |
Shirien Damra (born c. 1987) [1] is an American illustrator, designer, artist, and activist. [2] [3] She is known for her illustrations in support of social justice movements including the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and support of the LGBT community, immigration, Indigenous rights, and Palestine. [4] [5] [6] Her work has had power through viral sharing (via social media), and has been noted as a newer form of activism. [5] [7] [8] [9]
Shirien Damra was born in 1987 in Chicago, to Muslim parents that are Palestinian refugees. [10] [1] She knew about injustice and racism from her childhood. [11]
Damra attended DePaul University, where she received a bachelor's degree and master's degree in sociology. In 2015, she was diagnosed with cancer and she had to take a break from her advocacy work. [1] In 2019, she started posting images on instagram. [7]
Damra's George Floyd portrait (2020) was a tribute and was created using soft colors and featured his bust with eyes closed, and ringed in a wreath of flowers. [4] [12] Her portrait of Floyd went viral after she had posted it on instagram, and resulted in more than 3.4 million "likes". [4] [5] The Floyd portrait image was projected on the front of Grace Cathedral (2020) in San Francisco; [13] and painted as a mural in Raleigh, North Carolina. [10] Other tribute portraits by Damra made in solidarity with BLM have included Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. [10] All of the Damra portraits have their eyes closed, this is a reference to inward reflection and a style found in Eastern art. [10] Damra was commissioned by the Georgia's NAACP chapter for her Ahmaud Arbery portrait. [8] Additionally there is a community of other artists that created BLM-related social media-based viral work in 2020, including Nikkolas Smith, Stormy Nesbit, Dani Coke, Robin Hilkey, and Miriam Mosqueda. [14] [15]
In 2021, design consultancy Matter Unlimited and Damra designed a Washington, D.C. 4th Ward community mural in celebration of "Immigrant Day of Resilience". [6]
Her work is included in the traveling art exhibition, "Ye Shall Inherit the Earth and Faces of the Divine”. [10]
Damra's work has been criticized and dismissed for being performative and overly focused on aesthetics. [7] Some claim social media platforms such as instagram has changed how people address activism, and has created a lack of consistency in protest. [7]
Kimberly Drew is an American art influencer and writer. She is best known as the former social media manager for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and her use of the social media handle MuseumMammy. Drew released her first book, This Is What I Know About Art in June 2020, as part of a children series from Penguin, and published an anthology titled Black Futures with New York Times staff writer Jenna Wortham in December 2020.
S. Lee Merritt is an American civil rights lawyer and activist, most known for his work on racial justice issues.
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was murdered during a racially motivated hate crime while jogging in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia. Three white men, who later claimed to police that they assumed he was a burglar, pursued Arbery in their trucks for several minutes, using the vehicles to block his path as he tried to run away. Two of the men, Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, were armed in one vehicle. Their neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, was in another vehicle. After overtaking Arbery, Travis McMichael exited his truck, pointing his weapon at Arbery. Arbery approached McMichael and a physical altercation ensued, resulting in McMichael fatally shooting Arbery. Bryan recorded this confrontation and Arbery's murder on his cell phone.
Breonna Taylor was an African-American woman who was shot and killed while unarmed in her Louisville, Kentucky home by three police officers who entered under the auspices of a "no-knock" search warrant. After Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) ex-detective Brett Hankison was acquitted of felony wanton endangerment of Taylor's neighbors at the state-level, Attorney-General Merrick Garland announced the Department of Justice was charging Hankison with the unconstitutional use of excessive force that violated Taylor's civil rights. Three other officers, who were not present at the shooting, were also federally charged with conspiracy in falsifying evidence to procure the search warrant then covering it up.
George Perry Floyd Jr. was an African-American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, on May 25, 2020. Derek Chauvin, one of the four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds which caused a lack of oxygen. After his murder, protests against police brutality, especially towards black people, quickly spread across the United States and globally. His dying words, "I can't breathe", became a rallying slogan.
Blackout Tuesday was a collective action to protest racism and police brutality. The action, originally organized within the music industry in response to the murder of George Floyd, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and the killing of Breonna Taylor, took place on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. Businesses taking part were encouraged to abstain from releasing music and other business operations. Some outlets produced blacked out, silent, or minimal programming for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the originally reported length of time that police officer Derek Chauvin compressed Floyd's neck.
Individuals and organizations throughout the United States and the world have responded to the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests and riots.
Mariama White-Hammond is the Chief of Energy, Environment, and Open Space for the City of Boston. She also founded the New Roots African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Prior to her ordination in the AME Church, she was the director of Project HIP-HOP, a youth organization that uses arts as a way to communicate and educate on social justice topics.
The Black Lives Matter movement has been depicted and documented in various artistic forms and mediums including film, song, television, and the visual arts. In some instances this has taken place in the form of protest art. These cultural representations have also grown organically among artists who seek to partake in activist efforts in support or in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement. The themes conveyed in these artistic works address the history of racism and injustice toward people of color in the United States and typically express sentiments of anger and fear as well as solace and hope.
"I Can't Breathe" is a song by H.E.R. released on June 19, 2020. It was written by H.E.R., D'Mile and Tiara Thomas and produced by D'Mile. It reached number 20 on Billboard's Hot R&B Songs. The song won Song of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, serving as H.E.R.'s first ever win in this category.
Running while Black is a sardonic description of racial profiling experienced by Black runners in the United States and Canada. In the United States, jogging gained popularity after World War II, and has largely been portrayed by American media as an activity typically engaged in by White people; joggers of color are treated with suspicion. Black runners report taking precautions such as wearing bright colors to appear non-threatening, avoiding running outside of daylight hours, running in groups for safety, and avoiding running fast enough to appear to be "running away from something."
Many artworks related to the Black Lives Matter movement were created in Portland, Oregon, United States, during local protests over the murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans. Oregon Arts Watch contextualized the artistic works, stating that a "whitewashed pre-COVID lens" on American life, which obscured systemic racism, had been "cracked", and describing artists' response to racial violence being brought into the public eye was a "marathon, not a sprint".
Many artworks related to the Black Lives Matter movement have been created. These works are either seen as a direct tribute to those who have died or more broadly to the movement. Often the pieces are created in the streets as to be more publicly visible. As such several attempts have been made at preserving the art created in protest on the basis of their artistic merit and cultural significance. Increasingly, the erasure of the artwork has been a problem for preservationists. As such, the artworks below represent a fraction of the works created.
Tunde Oyeneyin is an American makeup artist and Peloton cycling instructor.
Patrick Martinez is a visual artist based in Los Angeles. He works in mixed-media landscape paintings, neon sign artwork, as well as his Pee Chee collection of works. One of his signature styles of art is depicting and memorializing victims of abuse as the subjects of his art.
We Stand With You is a 2020 mural of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor by artist Christian Grijalva, installed in Portland, Oregon.
A mural of George Floyd was painted by Emma Berger outside Portland, Oregon's Apple Pioneer Place, on June 1, 2020, a week after his murder, against the background of the ongoing protests against police brutality. She expanded the mural to show Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and phrases associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. The work was vandalized in August, and repaired by the artist. It was covered by Apple Inc. in December for preservation, then removed in January 2021 to be donated to Don't Shoot PDX.
Nikkolas Smith is an American contemporary artist, illustrator, and activist. He predominantly depicts African-American marginalized voices, as well as social justice in his works. His digital paintings are widely shared on social media and have been featured in Times Square, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
George Floyd was an African American man who was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020. He was memorialized via events, protests, artwork installations, organizations, official designations, and campaigns.
Save the Boards is an American nonprofit organization based in Minneapolis that collects and preserves street art that emerged during local protests of the murder of George Floyd in 2020.