Liberté Egalité Sororité - The Art of Protest
To the average French citizen, no explanation of “Liberté, Egalité, Sororité” is required. The literal translation is “liberty, equality, sorority” with the later also meaning “sisterhood”. This is a feminist revision on the French national motto “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” which means “liberty, equality, fraternity or brotherhood” and is prominently displayed on the exterior of every municipal and federal building in France today. Although my revision might cause pause for thought, it is anything but an insider’s joke. There is nothing humorous about a national motto that excludes half the country’s population and therein lays the poignancy of this work. Rather than alter the word fraternity to the more inclusive term “parity” or even “unity”, I am emphasizing the audaciousness of the original version, which is only considered as such once one substitutes the male gendered term for it’s female gendered counterpart. This is a tactic that I have also employed in my recent series “How I Became a Feminist by Reading Nietzsche”.
What began as an idea took its first form rendered in celebratory gold leaf text on watercolour paper. When I spent the summer of 2017 in Paris photographing and researching the Heroines of the French Revolution for my upcoming series, I brought this cornerstone work with me for inspiration. I had a version rendered in vinyl, which I installed on the Université Déscartes, leaving my mark on France in my first work of urban art. I recently published an article on The Women’s March on Washington vs. The Women’s March on Versailles, furthering the understanding of history and women's rights. It seemed appropriate that this artwork would also serve perfectly as the template for my poster design to be used in the latest women’s march. There comes a great sense of harmony when one’s politics and one’s art find common ground and begin to proliferate in multiple forms across various platforms. Such is the art of protest.
To the average French citizen, no explanation of “Liberté, Egalité, Sororité” is required. The literal translation is “liberty, equality, sorority” with the later also meaning “sisterhood”. This is a feminist revision on the French national motto “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” which means “liberty, equality, fraternity or brotherhood” and is prominently displayed on the exterior of every municipal and federal building in France today. Although my revision might cause pause for thought, it is anything but an insider’s joke. There is nothing humorous about a national motto that excludes half the country’s population and therein lays the poignancy of this work. Rather than alter the word fraternity to the more inclusive term “parity” or even “unity”, I am emphasizing the audaciousness of the original version, which is only considered as such once one substitutes the male gendered term for it’s female gendered counterpart. This is a tactic that I have also employed in my recent series “How I Became a Feminist by Reading Nietzsche”.
What began as an idea took its first form rendered in celebratory gold leaf text on watercolour paper. When I spent the summer of 2017 in Paris photographing and researching the Heroines of the French Revolution for my upcoming series, I brought this cornerstone work with me for inspiration. I had a version rendered in vinyl, which I installed on the Université Déscartes, leaving my mark on France in my first work of urban art. I recently published an article on The Women’s March on Washington vs. The Women’s March on Versailles, furthering the understanding of history and women's rights. It seemed appropriate that this artwork would also serve perfectly as the template for my poster design to be used in the latest women’s march. There comes a great sense of harmony when one’s politics and one’s art find common ground and begin to proliferate in multiple forms across various platforms. Such is the art of protest.
