Flowers for Fighters, 2021

“Hearts starve as well as bodies; yes it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses, too.”
​- Judy Collins, Bread & Roses 🥖🌹 

I commemorated May Day in 2021 by celebrating the labor of Chicago organizers in a window exhibition at P.O. Box Collective in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. The window exhibition, Flowers for Fighters, featured my watercolor portraits of Chicago-based organizers Byul Yoon (Dissenters), Mariame Kaba (Project NIA, Interrupting Criminalization), Benji Hart (Multi-Disciplinary Artist and Organizer, #NoCopAcademy), Kelly Hayes (Lifted Voices), and Sarah-Ji, whose photography of Chicago justice movements was also on display. I also included a handful of digitally illustrated posters uplifting the labor of queer Latine farmer friends at Catatumbo Cooperative Farm on the southeast side,  the mothers in the fight for reparations for Jon Burge torture survivors, and more.

I spoke briefly at the opening and noted that the U.S labor movement as we know it would be nothing without the labor of Black women — such as Lucy Parsons, Sylvia Wood, and Clara Day — and how important it is to keep creating all kinds of new traditions of giving roses to those who lead us towards a world where everyone has what they need to survive and more. Thank you to Black & brown women, femmes, gender non-conforming and trans organizers in Chicago who teach us how to fight and why we fight everyday.

Thank you to Mary Zerkel, Salome Chasnoff, Mark Diaz, Graeson Rosa, Olly Costello, Jes and Tiff Favers du Shine, and many more who helped with installing the exhibition.