Sending Solidarity: Protest Greeting Cards

America has a problem. A few problems. 99 problems and a white man is perhaps 100 of them. I am an American “expat” living in Turkiye and I keep half of my heart in Chicago. I’m not American enough for some Americans anymore, “YOu DoN’t EvEn LivE HeRe”. And certainly not Turkish enough to be any sort of Turk. But, y’all. I have thoughts. I have FEELINGS. If you know me you already know.

The Uvalde Shootings were such a gut punch. After Sandy Hook, we all knew it was just a matter of time if nothing was done. And that if that event did not force a change essentially nothing could. So we all have to live through this again, except for the 19 kids and 2 teacher who did not. And it’s a fucking tragedy for all of us. Even and maybe especially for the Americans who want to arm every single adult in the country including preschool teachers.
 

In Turkiye, I live across the street from a primary school. A few days after the Uvalde mass shooting, I looked out from my balcony, and there, in the schoolyard, I counted 19 3rd and 4th graders. They were running and playing and making all sorts of noise. I love living by the school, I love to hear the yelling and laughing before the world sucks away all of their joy. I turned to my husband and said, “That’s them, that’s 19 kids. 19 3rd and 4th graders. The same number that was murdered in that Texas school a few days back.” We just watched them in silence until the bell called them inside. A few nights later we started to watch the new season of Stranger Things and I couldn’t watch. The opening scenes of bloodied and murdered kids seem so gratuitous now, disgusting.

Like W.T.F. We’re out here still trying to regulate weed smoking and imprisoning drug users. Letting people - KIDS - live on the actual STREETS and selling military-grade firearms to unstable 18 years olds while the world literally burns? That’s what’s happening now. Right? RIGHT?!

Roe is overturned, as we knew it would be thanks to the leak. I wonder, did they leak it on purpose? To lessen the riots, protests, and crowds? Because by the time went through my anger had mostly passed, it was just pain. A stabbing, cramping, bleeding pain in my uterus.

And then, on the 4th of July, just before I went to bed, I saw the news that on the other side of the world, in affluent, North Shore suburban Chicago, an angry young white man shoots up a parade, orphans a child, paralyzes another and traumatizes thousands (millions? More??). I’m fed up (more than before) feeling hopeless.

Last week I poured my rage into a miniature protest to show solidarity to my sisters and allies in the USA in light of recent SCOTUS rulings and mass shootings. Sending Solidarity features 9 portraits of different Barbies holding tiny protest signs from “Abort the Court” to “Defund the Police” and “Fuck You, Clarence Thomas.” My art practice has always included photography, portraiture, and printed (mailable) materials. These images appear on greeting cards paired with soft interior colors. A protest by mail. A miniature ‘march’ in the time of COVID.

So many of us are feeling exasperated, mad, and ready to be heard. These dolls and their hand-drawn posters somehow hit that nerve. Their cheerful, plastic expressions juxtaposed with direct, radical activism read as a calm resilience. They are hopeful and resolute.

Sending Solidarity to all of you out there in the streets or making your voice heard in your own special way. See all of the images and shop the Protest Greeting Card collection here: LHM.BigCartel.com