In Houston, in partnership with Houston Center for Photography and Project Row Houses, stand billboards that ask, “Where do we go from here?”
Likewise, overlooking Behrman Highway in New Orleans, is another billboard stating, “Us is them.”
Most notably, one in Pearl, Mississippi, sparked the most controversy, stating, “Make America Great Again,” with a photograph from the incident known as “Bloody Sunday” accompanying it.
Those billboards and others like them are the work of the artist-run political action committee For Freedoms, which is partnering with Kickstarter to finance more of these billboards across the country, which will be on display from September, leading up to the midterm elections, through December.
The “50 State Initiative” is a non-partisan, nationwide campaign to inspire broad civic participation through the arts, launching 52 campaigns—one per state, including Puerto Rico and Washington D.C.
These Kickstarter campaigns begin today, June 4, and end on July 31.
For Freedoms is a platform for civic engagement, discourse, and direct action for artists in the United States. Its name is derived from Norman Rockwell’s paintings of “Four Freedoms” consolidating what Franklin D. Roosevelt laid out in a 1941 speech to Congress—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
For Freedoms is led by 2018 Guggenheim Fellow Hank Willis Thomas and Creative Capital artist Eric Gottesman. For the 50 States Initiative, they’ve reached out to artists like Tania Bruguera, Theaster Gates, Richard Misrach, Trevor Paglen, and Carrie Mae Weems.
To create these billboards, For Freedoms is partnering with some 200 institutions and 175 artists across the country. Each billboard will be accompanied by an exhibition and town hall meeting organized by the local partners to encourage and cultivate conversations on issues both local and national, empowering artists and arts institutions to be community leaders in civic engagement.
In Atlanta, partners include Clark Atlanta University, Kennesaw State University, and {Poem 88} gallery. The Telfair Museums, Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah College of Fashion and Design, and Owens-Thomas House in Savannah are also statewide partners in this campaign.
Look out for these upcoming billboards, pledge in the links below, and engage in what they are trying to provide: Conversations about local and nation issues that these artists address.
Links to pledge your respective state and current partners throughout the South include:
Alabama
AL.com
Coleman Center for the Arts, York
Birmingham Library
University of Alabama, Birmingham
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
Mobile Art Museum
Arkansas
University of Arkansas, Little Rock
Florida
Florida International University, Miami
Perez Art Museum, Miami
Opa-locka Community Development Corporation, Opa Locka
Florida State University, Tallahassee
University of South Florida, Tampa
Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa
The Ringling Museum, Sarasota
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
The Norton Museum, West Palm Beach
Georgia
Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta
{Poem88}, Atlanta
Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw
Telfair Museums, Savannah
Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah
Owens-Thomas House, Savannah
Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah
Kentucky
University of Louisville, Louisville
Louisiana
Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans
Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans
Tulane University, New Orleans
Mississippi
Tougaloo College, Jackson
Significant Developments, Jackson
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill
Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte
Duke University, Durham
Elsewhere Projects, Greensboro
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro
Winston-Salem State, Winston-Salem
South Carolina
Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia
Tennessee
Memphis College of Art, Memphis
Rhodes College, Memphis
Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis
University of Memphis, Memphis
Virginia
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Randolph College, Lynchburg
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk
Rutter Family Art Foundation, Norfolk
Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach
