Category Archives: perSISTERS designs

Female Power Project, perSISTERS designs

Be Brave for Danuta Danielsson

BE BRAVE for Danuta Danielsson, perSISTERS print in the Female Power Project. Contact the Creatrix to purchase this print.

A woman Hitting a neo-Nazi with her handbag is a famous photograph taken in Växjö, Sweden on 13 April 1985 by Hans Runesson. It depicts a 38-year-old woman hitting a marching Nazi-skinhead with a handbag. The photograph was taken during a demonstration of the Nordic Reich Party supporters. The angle of the photo, her posture, facial expression, and what she’s wearing makes her look a lot older than she really is. The picture was published in the next day’s Dagens Nyheter and a day later in some British newspapers. It sparked a huge discussion in Sweden, and the woman—who suffered from anxiety and hated the sudden media spotlight—ended up committing suicide two years later.

The woman in the photograph is Danuta Danielsson. She was of Polish-Jewish origin, her mother had been in a concentration camp and she got very angry when she saw the young Nazis in her quiet town. When the incident happened she had only lived in Sweden for a few years. Dunata met her future Swedish husband at a jazz festival in Poland and shortly after that they were married. Her acquaintances described her as energetic and positive during their first years in the new country. But she had a darker side, sometimes she was mentally fragile. Very often she screamed menacingly to people on the streets, sometimes she muttered to herself. She was also treated at a psych ward and eventually threw herself from a water tower in 1988.

The neo-Nazi’s name was Seppo Seluska. He was a militant Nazi from the Nordic Reich Party, later convicted for murder. He tortured and murdered a Jewish homosexual later the same year.

rarehistoricalphotos.com

Addendum (2024)

This design from 2017 was one of three whose purpose was to explore iconic images of women protesting. For that purpose I chose images that had gone viral. These also include BE PRESENT and SHOW UP. Next I wanted to work with other historic images and that’s when I chose the image of Ruby Bridges. After I made that print I noticed how viewers couldn’t remember the details of the event, even though they recognized the image. For example, no one remembered that Ruby was in New Orleans. Everyone assumed it was Arkansas. So that was when I started writing the short blurbs to package with the prints. Over time the blurbs got longer, and now one could call them essays.

Photo by Hans Runesson
Female Power Project, perSISTERS designs

Be Present for Ieshia Evans

Be Present for Ieshia Evans, perSISTERS print design in the Female Power Project. To purchase contact the Creatrix.

Ieshia Evans was arrested in Baton Rouge in 2016 while protesting the murder of Alton Sterling by police. “It was silence. It was just a lot of nonverbal communication. Sometimes, silence speaks volumes.” “What did you want your silence to say?” “I’m human. I’m a woman. I’m a mom. I’m a nurse. I could be your nurse. I could be taking care of you. You know? I’m here. We all matter. We don’t have to beg to matter. We do matter … I never really considered myself to be in the definition of brave. But sometimes, jobs are given to you that you’re not really—you didn’t apply for. You know?”

From a photograph captured by Jonathan Bachman

theguardian.com and cbsnews.com

DESIGN NOTE

I began the Female Power Project in 2015. Previously I had been making digital designs that I had printed on fabrics to make scarves and shawls. In 2015, because the Pope was visiting the neighborhood where I have my studio, I made a shawl design representing the iconography of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Something seemed to happen when a woman put on this garment. It was like she was wearing the power of the person represented. I decided to explore this idea using representations of other powerful females. I have made designs honoring Harriet Tubman, Malala Yousafzai, Maya Angelou, Erzulie (the Haitian Lwa of love in her aspects of maternal love), Marie Curie, and Frida Kahlo. Each of these designs required months-long processes of research, visual experimentation, and proofing. It was very slow and expensive, but also transformative. When our woman candidate lost the presidential election—to an abuser of women—my first thought was, “It didn’t work.” The powers at work against us are just too large and sometimes seem metaphysical in scope. I became fascinated by the image of Ieshia Evans’ passive resistance, her power and grace—and beauty—in the face of these bizarrely dressed over-militarized police. I wanted to make work about this woman but a shawl about her seemed absurd. I made mixed medium assemblage and paintings instead. It was after the Women’s March that I realized that I need to work much faster and in an easily distributed medium. I started with iconic images—thinking everyone would know them—but soon realized I need to include the historical background with each print. I don’t work very hard on this part of the writing because I want to be able to make the work really fast so I can respond to events as quickly as possible. I believe the real writing happens when I work on identifying the power or message in the particular story or event—unless I am responding to a meme (“Reclaiming my time;” “Nevertheless she persisted”) in which case the culture has already distilled the words of the message for me. These texts must be very short and avoid cliché. These are micro-poems expressing the urgent actions and attitudes of mind that speak truth to power and activate a transfomative rhetoric of the marginalized. 

PRESENCE: Honoring Ieshia Evans (Female Power Project)
Female Power Project, perSISTERS designs

Show Up for Tess Asplund

SHOW UP for Tess Asplund perSISTERS print in the Female Power Project. You can purchase this design online at this link.

Tess Asplund, born in 1974, is a Swedish activist who gained attention because of her protest against neo-Nazis in Borlänge, Sweden. David Lagerlof is the photographer of the viral image, which shows Asplund facing 300 uniformed members of the Swedish Nordic Resistance Movement with her fist in the air. She is originally from Colombia and describes herself as Afro-Swedish. “It was an impulse. I was so angry, I just went out into the street,” Asplund told the Guardian. “I was thinking: hell no, they can’t march here! I had this adrenaline. No Nazi is going to march here, it’s not okay.” “I hope something positive will come out of the picture. Maybe what I did can be a symbol that we can do something—if one person can do it, anyone can.” 

based on Wikipedia and the Guardian

DESIGN NOTE

I began the perSISTERS series with three iconic images of women protesters: Danuta Danielsson, “BE BRAVE” (woman hitting a neo-Nazi over the head with her handbag), Ieshia Evans, “BE PRESENT” (the awesomely poised woman in a breezy sun dress getting arrested by three riot police looking like intergalactic warriors), and this one. In all of these I have cropped in to focus on the woman’s figure, stressing that she is the agent in the tableau. (You can also see this effect in the Ruby Bridges design.) I had just experienced the DC Women’s March and I was captivated by the idea of putting my body in a particular space at a particular time in order to communicate a message of power. 

As I was working with this image I was drawing a path around the figure and her bag. Zoomed in, I saw how lumpy her bag is, and I realized she had her groceries in there. She was out doing her shopping when she was called to stand in that place at that time in that way. She was already there, but then she “Showed Up” with a very fundamental posture of resistance. My work in the perSISTERS series is my posture of resistance. Shortly after this photo was captured the police officer in the background pulled Asplund out of the way of the marchers.

Photo by David Lagerlof