solidarity is not a slogan

Author Bio:

Taylor Miller

Taylor Miller completed her BFA and MA in Art & Visual Culture Education at the University of Arizona. As a PhD candidate, her research interests include the contemporary cultural and political geography of Tel Aviv and Marseille, arts-led gentrification and the aesthetics of occupation in the urban built environment. Her transdisciplinary projects incorporate photography, poetry & critical architectural and urban theory. To view her work or contact, visit www.taylorkmiller.com

Cite This:

Taylor Miller. "solidarity is not a slogan". Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research Vol. 6 No. 1 (01 June 2020): pp. 11-22. (Last accessed on 21 November 2024). Available at: https://kohljournal.press/solidarity-not-slogan. doi: https://doi.org/10.36583/2020060104.

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Tears in the fabric.png

Tears in the fabric

Skinsells

gash (noun)
\ ˈgash
1: a deep long cut in flesh
2: a deep narrow depression or cut

Reminders on the corner to nudge us out of routine, complicity. A curious cartography of visual resistance. The who and the when and the what now, repeated in my privilege of movement. Easily passed by, but easy to stop and heed the message. A sign in the city that there’s someone, somewhere, thinking about reinscribing space to value those dispossessed, paved over, silenced.

Yet – stickers and scrawls have all been scratched, torn, defaced. A half-life of wheatpastings, barely legible after the violence and rain. Opposition on the street, efforts to stymie these attempts at movement building and solidarity. Palpable tension in text. Each city reading the same. Mark-making, image-taking. Taking. Remember I am not doing enough.