New York public art project spreads empowering messages in the form of protest banners

Public art programme Times Square Arts and artist collective House of Trees have been collaborating on the public art project Word on the Street over the past year. Word on the Street was originally created by House of Trees who exhibited banners from last year’s Women’s March (2017). It has since evolved, consisting of political banners conceptualised and produced by renowned female artists alongside Texas-based female refugee fabricators.

The second edition of Word on the Street is now being exhibited in New York’s Times Square and includes work by Tania Bruguera and Laurie Anderson. The signage reads a variety of statements, including: “Open palms hold more”; “Embrace the absurd”; “When the rights of immigrants are denied, the rights of citizens are at risk”; “Politics is half image-making, half making people believe the image.” Word on the Street hopes to foster positive responses to the ever-changing social and political climate.

House of Trees state: “We use the form of the protest banner as a platform for poetic language and imagery that exists both as an institutional art and a resistance object in the streets", the collective has commented.