2020
Witness is a community advocacy project that I co-founded in 2020 during the height of the racial justice movement in Louisville, KY. As an artist, designer, and community member I felt that I had a responsibility to help uplift the voices of artists in Louisville. Specifically, those artists who had been documenting and creating work surrounding 2020's historic revelation of systemic injustice by the tragic death of Breonna Taylor.
The design of Volume 001 is intended to contrast the digital medium by which people receive news and information. The intent was to prove that through word of mouth, and through the form of a book, we could display soulfully enriching and honest photography, artwork, and poetry that truthfully depicted the movement of marginalized communities — in spite of the divisive rhetoric and agendas enacted by corporate news media.
Witness provides a window into the perspective of the artist — and a doorway for the artist to project their voice.
Witness' intent spans beyond contemporary politics, however. It digs deep into the holism of the artist community in Louisville. ABR writes in their review of 001 that, "While the publication is so focused on Louisville’s deep racism, it is also a love letter to that city — not to [Louisville's] police or its history, but to the network of artists and activists there. In its intense focus on one place and one short span of time, Witness manages to impart something much larger: a blooming, a spreading-out of that complex, nameless sense of love."
Witness provides a window into the perspective of the artist — and a doorway for the artist to project their voice.
