“Protest 2017” is a series of street intervention performances, the latest in the series of “Protest” works started in 2003. It features eight projected semi-animated movies shot at protests, starting with the 2003 anti-Iraq War protests, through Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and the most recent 2016 and 2017 anti-Trump protests. The eight projections, lined up next to each other, along with soundtracks of protest chants, form the activated space within which a group of performers march back and forth chanting and recreating a live protest. Each of their chants and each of their signs are gleaned from the original documented protests in the projections. As they march past each projection, they are progressing through time, from 2003 to 2017. They walk between the projection devices and the projections, throwing their shadows onto the walls, adding another layer of action and protest image to the already densely packed scenes.

The imagery of protest depicted in the projections concentrate on the signage, the visual messages while the accompanying audio concentrates on the repetitive chanting. The stark black and white high-contrast movies condense this even further. The performers gesticulate with black and white signs based on actual signs in the projections and welcome others on the streets to join them in their marching and chanting.

Performed at 21 different locations around New York City, this series “takes it back to the streets,” activates spaces and people that are not part of the art world, and engages in a multi-media, multi-dimensional dialogue not only about the content of the various protests (war, capitalism, racism, women’s rights, immigrant’s rights, police brutality, workers’ rights, and more), but also about the use of public space, the co-opting of surfaces with “ephemeral graffiti,” the activation of dead areas with the intrusion of moving image, sounds, and performance. It blurs the line between art and activism, reiterating the voices of many, reigniting the cries for justice, for change, for a chance to be heard, to be listened to… By combining protests from different eras one gets to navigate through time which reminds us of what was and is important, what has not changed and what is in common with all. They clearly have aesthetic and visceral similarities but also each represent the voice of the people begging to be heard. This series is an echo of that voice, a reiteration of the original via art.