Freedoms at whose cost?
Design: Street Mural
By: ForFreedoms/@Blazay
Location: 25-17 41st Ave, LIC, NY
Open: 2110106
When I found out ForFreedoms (“an artist-led organization that models and increases creative civic engagement, discourse and direct action”) commissioned artist Blazay to do a re-interpretation piece based off of one of Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms, I trekked out in the cold, cold winter to a quiet corner of Long Island City to check out the mural.
Norman Rockwell is an American artist that did a series of four paintings illustrating the four basic human freedoms President FDR outlined in a speech to the nation during World War II: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These paintings went on a national tour across the US to sell war bonds and stamps in 1943.
I was born and raised in Queens, lauded as the most diverse borough of New York City. It’s something all Queens kids say with pride and I love Blazay’s interpretation of “Freedom to Worship” because it paints a clear picture of what can be unity in America, despite our diversity.
Rockwell’s original paintings were limited in their representation (he featured his own hometown experiences as a white American) and our country’s democracy is wrought with broken promises.
I cannot go without acknowledging that before there was Queens, this was the land of the Lenape, whom were forcibly displaced by the US government. Land acknowledgement* is becoming more widespread, but even as I write this, understand that a verbal cue is not enough to heal the trauma inflicted on those whose basic human freedoms were restricted, for the sake of colonialism.
But the first step to making any change is always awareness (oftentimes, specifically awareness of our privilege). This mural is a reminder that great public art has the power to raise awareness and ask questions of our society. In this case, who is being represented in America? Who is being oppressed? Our our freedoms really protected? At whose and what cost?
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*A good starting point to learn more about the Indigenous land you might occupy can be found here.