On my way to work, I go past a series of paintings mounted on a wall, one the public artworks that went up after the police murder of George Floyd.*
How do we explain the obvious, and what's obvious anyway?
I've been thinking about how author Martha Wells effectively presents things that would be obvious to the characters in her futuristic Murderbot books, but aren't obvious to us, the readers.
She doesn't over-explain, so we just don't know how some things work in Murderbot's world, not exactly.
Over the span of four books (so far), however, Wells gradually reveals the world's working, in a naturalistic way--as the characters interact with some new setting or other character, we get bits of information that we can piece together, if we want.
And it struck me that I see this painting, below––"After Jamar", by Lane Eliyahu––the way Murderbot sees its world--from the inside.
The painter counts on the viewer to know her symbolism, though it's specific, insider knowledge.
I am (we are) seeing art history in the making. One day
(if we're lucky) art historians will teach "The Iconography of Protest
Art in the Twenty-Twenties".
It will have to be explained--(or may have to be explained now)--that people took (take) milk to public protests, to pour into eyes in order to counter the burning tear gas that police spray.
In the painting, the milk being poured onto a fallen protester's face is turning into flowers and butterflies and dragonflies:
Milk has a lot of symbolic connections---the nourishing mother (alma mater), the milk of human kindness, the land of milk and honey....
(Milk may contain bacteria, however, and the CDC instead recommends rinsing eyes with water for 10-15 minutes.)
The T-shirt of the woman on the ground reads "JUST US?" Justice.
I looked up the roots--there are many, including the book The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (inspired by the 2009 police shooting Oscar Grant to death at Fruitvale Station):
''Hate U Give emphasizes "Just Us" speaks to painful realization that those who remain comfortably unaffected are unlikely to be immediate allies."
--via Bustle, 2018
The painter, Lane Eliyahu, writes:
"I saw up close how the most vulnerable among us are the first to stand up against shite supremacy. Black transgender and gender-nonconforming people are the first to step into harms way."
3 comments:
I did not know that milk was taken to riots for use after the tear gas. I'm actually a bit horrified that people take milk or water because they expect to be affected by tear gas. Your country is so violent! If I knew there was going to be tear gas anywhere, I'd be staying home! I've seen your riots on tv; crowds of angry people pushing, yelling, fighting and against them crowds of policemen pushing, yelling, hitting and spraying.
So different to a rally held here recently where people marched to the square holding up their signs and chanting, when the square was reached the people stood, saying their piece, while a single line of policemen stood nearby in case action was needed (it wasn't) and they weren't even wearing SWAT gear, just regular uniforms.
RIVER: Yes, it's CRAZY how violent we Americans have become (or always were)...
And now lots of people carry guns too, so it's extra crazy.
We do have some peaceful, quiet protest marches too, but these days it's all hot, hot, hot.
I do stay home--not my scene--and try to do my little part in other ways (like book displays of history of women and people of color, etc.).
Crazy world.
That's a great painting.
And water may be more hygienic for washing eyes, but I bet milk works faster--same as when you're gasping from spicy food.
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