READY FOR A NEW DAY


On March 20, 2006, ten years ago, I walked through NYC with four other women, artists and activists, carrying an American flag on which the words NO ALLEGIANCE TO WAR, TORTURE AND LIES were sewn. We traveled through the city stopping at the U.N., Wall Street, the World Trade Center site and the Times Square Military Recruitment Center. We unified ourselves under a second powerful message printed on our shirts, the words WE WILL NOT BE SILENT, a declaration originally dating back to the WHITE ROSE, a student-resistance movement in Nazi Germany. Ten years ago, I also made a vow to embody a message of meaning from that day onward. I committed myself to a language project, dedicating each day to use my body as a means to display compelling messages in all the public and private places I traveled, messages that would be noticed and that inspired countless conversations with so many extraordinary people. Ten years have passed quickly, engaged in this social experiment discovering the endless possibilities with language, to "say it simple" but to have profound results.



To mark this time passing, we returned to the streets of NYC, still here, committed to carry on.







"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."
- Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living



First photo credit Carole Ashley, Times Square Military Recruitment Center, NYC, March 20, 2006
Second photo credit Ellen Davidson, World Trade Center, March 19, 2016, with Lynne Stewart 
Third and Fourth photo credit Michael Nigro, World Trade Center, March 19, 2016
Fifth photo credit Bud Korotzer, World Trade Center, March 19, 2016
Sixth photo credit Sarah Wellington, Vigil for Vonderrit Myers Jr. killed by police, St. Louis, MO, October 2014
WE WILL NOT BE SILENT is an artist/activist collaborative language project that has been in existence since 2006. Through the creative use of language embodied on shirts and emboldened on signs held up in public spaces, we respond to current social issues, encouraging creative, direct public-actions where many people can participate.

WE WILL NOT BE SILENT | PO BOX 150343 | 275 9th Street | Brooklyn | NY | 11215