Art Can Change the World: 7 Artists on Visualising Justice
In early June, the LCC Changemakers hosted a Visualising Racial and Social Justice event at London College of Communication to break down topics such as institutionalised education, storytelling, equity, and art’s potential to make real-world change. Throughout the day, staff, students, peers, artists, and individuals from other educational programs gathered to discuss their experiences and how evolution could take place to ensure a fairer and more equitable future for generations to come. As a part of that initiative, several international artists were selected to present their work and share thoughts on how their art relates to social justice.
Lita (Lituole) Wei, who hails from China, explores how colonialism has shaped the art world, specifically in terms of stolen art housed within the V&A. Her interactive website and art piece, Caged Birds, considers the art pieces within the V&A as living objects, questioning the circumstances surrounding their origins and whether or not they might appreciate the state of their lives.
“Some artifacts and artwork were being taken away in the 19th century during the colonial era,” she says. “Do we think they are happy being there in a foreign museum instead of in their home country or back inside the earth?” She thinks of the pieces — a vase, a crown, a necklet — as caged birds, encapsulated within the dark confines of colonialism. Informed by historical storylines, Wei’s work rewrites a narrative with thickly textured patterns and tongue-in-cheek digs at the colonial figures who captured objects from African and South African countries to line the halls of Western museums.
Another artist who not only questions authority but bites back is Paris-based Roman Lehman Schlaht. After growing discontent with the neglected cities that he believes are becoming increasingly sterile, visually empty, and uncared for, Schlaht decided to try his hand at a kind of alternative graffiti. Rather than taking spray paint to walls, he uses soap and water to clean the surfaces of dirty walls, creating an image with the absence of filth.
“I find a really dirty wall and I literally just clean it. It creates an inverse of my design, which then shows my drawing,” he says. “And if they want to remove the artwork, they can just clean the wall.”
There’s a playfulness to his art. The drawings are cartoonish characters with bulbous edges and rounded faces. “I do really want to give joy to people,” he says, noting that he also wants to bend the rules, pushing back against big corporations and governments. “As the world moves, the rules also need to change.”
Edward Hongyi Jia recognises the societal shifts occurring between people, nature, and technology. With a background in agriculture, Jia’s first projects centred on freshwater fish breeding. Now, a painter and ceramicist, Jia conjures a conversation that lands between freedom, remembering, and identity — both on individual and collective scales.
“I found a problem between the human relationship and artificial landscapes,” he says. In response, he creates loud and vibrant brushstrokes, a reimagining of what liberation and brilliance can look like when spread across a large canvas. Similar to bonsai trees, greenhouses, or nature parks, he found motivation to make his own artificial landscapes that reflect the power of nature in a tech-driven world. For him, it’s one step toward creating a better future.
Originally from China, Jia has worked to find his voice in the UK, although he admits it can be a struggle in a foreign tongue and country. “I will keep going to influence the world because the big successes were made by so many small successes, inch by inch. It's not only me, but so many people making things together.”
In a similar vein, Eve Wysocki focuses on the topic of sustainability within her line of work: fashion design. The Polish artist creates minimal, high-quality, and practical one-size clothing pieces that fit all 12 standard sizes. Wysocki has long grown tired of fast fashion and its overflow into our everyday lives. Instead, she hungers for a slower fashion future — in shades of simple black, navy, and white.
“I'd love to have everything from my underwear to outwear made consciously,” she says. While sustainability is one of her central focuses, she also values the importance of feeling confident and comfortable in clothing, regardless of body shape.
“I've been frustrated for so many years with trying to fit into sizing systems. The constant change was an emotional struggle. I was questioning myself: Is there something wrong with me?” she says. “So I decided I'm trying to change that.” When she speaks with people about her work, they struggle to believe that her clothing will fit any body type. Yet, when she wears her modernised designs out on the streets, she notices the heads turning as she walks by.
The female experience is not monolithic; however, nearly every woman has her own story to tell about body image issues, as well as negative experiences tied to male-inflicted damage. Mabel Wynne is, unfortunately, no stranger to this experience. The UK-based artist performed an “artistic exorcism” and turned her negative experiences with men into an art book: One day I could be living again. What started as an amalgamation of poems, photographs, and random notes and scraps is now a story of the first three years of her adult life, as well as the memories that came before from her childhood. In soft pinks, purples, and blues, the book portrays the resulting reverberations that occur after sexual assault and the navigation of relationships in an isolated and lonely world.
Her work comes to life in a meeting place between gentle imagery and messages of fury and pain. “Femininity in both men and women is something that's demonized and will instantly put someone in a much worse position in society if they've got any love of femininity about them,” she says. “That's something that I really want to change.”
It all lands in an achingly true place between lightness and heavy realism. “There's never really an end to the experience. We're just carrying on,” she says.
It can be difficult to find a sense of belonging in the current world, and Suhaana Verma digs into this with her work on locality. The artist was born in London, raised in the Welsh countryside, and possesses Indian heritage. In a photo essay, Verma is pictured walking the streets of her hometown in traditional Indian clothing — a flurry of heavy red and brilliant gold. She attempts to answer the question, “If I were walking in the streets, would I be recognised as a local?”
In the past, Verma has avoided topics surrounding identity unless the product was lighthearted; however, she has found that tapping into this part of her art, although initially nerve-racking, has been insightful to her own personal journey. “I want people to take a moment and look at my work and self-reflect on themselves. At the same time, my work was very much for myself.”
While artistic journeys come in many forms, Shaneika Asare Simms’ has been significantly shaped by her experience as a mother to her two children. In her video piece, Do Not Upload, Simms is shown in all her conditions — big-bellied, bloodied, riddled with acupuncture needles, and, again and again, in embraces with her young children. She brings her children with her everywhere, viewing them as a constant in her life rather than a disturbance. “Being a mother is something that is a part of my life. Being Black is a part of my life. I can't switch off,” she says. “I had the nerve to go to uni with a toddler, to continue my studies while pregnant, to continue even with a newborn. I had the nerve to bring her to all my seminars and classes. In life, if you don't have the audacity, you miss out.”
Becoming a mother has changed her view on art making. If something is unworthy, she will not sacrifice her time as a mother or a wife for it. “It has to be my wholehearted expression,” she says. “I want to show my kids that being bold, being tenacious can get you somewhere. I need to do that for myself before I can teach it to them.”