News
A Project Honoring Victims of Police Violence Is Going Cross-Country
The new phase of the 1-800 Happy Birthday art initiative aims to raise national awareness about the "epidemic of state violence."
Police brutality
Interview
Power Traces the History of Policing in the US
Following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, filmmaker Yance Ford was struck by the question: “What, exactly, do the police exist to do?”
News
Activists Decry “Show of Force and Violence” at Brooklyn Museum Protest
The museum acknowledged that “the police brutality that took place was devastating” but said it did not call the NYPD.
Art
NYC Exhibition Celebrates Black and Brown Lives Taken by Police
At 1-800 Happy Birthday, payphones ring periodically with loving voicemails from families and strangers, and all the dates in the show are birthdays — “there are no deathdates.”
News
The Winnie the Pooh Painting That Scandalized the Cincinnati Police
Artist Magnus Juliano was the target of threatening comments after police called for the removal of his painting "Off the Pig" from the Cincinnati Art Museum.
News
Colombian Government Exploited Doris Salcedo’s Art to Denounce Nationwide Protests
The government’s usurpation of Salcedo’s Fragmentos installation has been viewed as the latest instance of “artwashing” by the Colombian Ministry of Culture.
Art
A Joyous, Sorrowful Archive of Birthday Messages for Lives Lost to Police
1-800 Happy Birthday takes a simple yet ambitious approach to the epidemic of racial violence.
News
Forensic Architecture and Bellingcat Map Police Brutality at Black Lives Matter Protests
The organizations verified over 1,000 pieces of video evidence showing hundreds of attacks on civilians and journalists during this year’s demonstrations.
Art
How Posters Have Targeted Police Violence, From the 1960s to Today
“There’s a story behind every poster,” says Carol Wells, a former medievalist who abandoned her dissertation to devote her life to posters.
Art
The Los Angeles Paper That Documented Police Brutality in the 1960s and ’70s
For years, only the Los Angeles Free Press chronicled the many incidents of police violence in Los Angeles, making crucial connections between racial disenfranchisement and mass unrest.
News
A New iOS Shortcut Blurs Faces and Wipes Metadata for Protest Images
The solution, innovated by software developer Noah Conk and a cohort of anonymous programmers, allows iPhone photographs to be published without revealing information about when and where they were taken.
Art
Online Tools and Teach-ins: Resources for Understanding Calls to #DefundtheNYPD
If you’ve been on social media this week, you’ve likely seen growing calls to defund the police. Here are a few resources for understanding the very urgent need to reexamine and shift the role police play in our society.