This is a video which shows youth talking about their experiences in the schools at the turn of the century…this moment in history taught us so much. For Favianna Rodriguez, Jose Lopez, Marco Palma and myself, as the group “ten12”, it was a period where we brought art and technology together. In the video I see the posters I designed for the “Week of Rage” (a culmination of actions across the state), as well as Favianna Rodriguez’ images on banners.
There were so many artists making posters for this movement it was really incredible. At the time Jose Lopez and Marco Palma were working on the SchoolsNotJails.com website along with Favianna who created the design for it. This website was always in development, new content was added all the time like videos such as the one above from Joe Feria Galicia. This was way back when people were still using 56k modems connected to their phones, it was very new stuff.
I know as developing visual artists, it was in these times that we learned how important it was for art to be connected to social movements. How we could use the web to put our message into the world and document the work that we were doing. As sad as it was to see this state pass Prop.21/22, the organizing work continued happening. Today we see all the result of people who came up through that generation and taught each other so much.