• Slug: BC-CNS-Artists 4 Liberation. 1,335 words.
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By Kayla Mae Jackson
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – American writer Amiri Baraka once said, “The artist’s role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That’s how I see it. Otherwise, I don’t know why you do it.”

Artists 4 Liberation is a Phoenix-based human-rights advocacy group that is using art to raise consciousness about the Palestinian people and fight for marginalized groups across the globe.

The organization holds community art events, fashion shows, movie screenings, rallies and marches throughout Phoenix in support of Palestinian liberation. At the events, local artists are invited to create posters with provided supplies, create political graphic T-shirts at screenprinting locations with designs by local artists, hang up political art flyers around the city and hear from local activists.

Artists 4 Liberation co-founder E Rizo said the organization was born in November 2023 out of the disheartenment he and his childhood friend, Nenga Swanson, felt about the lack of collective outrage in response to the documented suffering of Palestinian people as a result of the Israel-Hamas war.

“Nenga and I came to each other as childhood friends to catch up and expressed our frustration with each other on how the overwhelming majority of our friends, family and peers are silent during times of a live-streamed genocide,” Rizo said.

They created Artists 4 Liberation to combat the silence by encouraging people to speak out against the rapidly rising death count and famine in Gaza.

As of early this month, according to the Associated Press, more than 33,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza and the West Bank, and 1,200 people have died in Israel since Oct. 7, when the latest war between Israel and Hamas began; though the Global Conflict Tracker reports Israel and Palestine have been in conflict since the late 1940s when Israel was created.

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which tracks and classifies food security across the world, nearly half of the 2.23 million people in the Gaza Strip are experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, and the entire population is “facing high levels of acute food insecurity.”

“We wanted to shine some light on the atrocities being committed around the world at the hands of our government, white supremacy and colonialism,” Rizo said. “We wanted to help encourage all other artists around us to get out there and use their voice and art to uplift and bring real awareness and change.”

Rizo called on artists because of how deeply art is ingrained in the world around us and because of its ability to make a difference.

“Whether the majority is aware or not, art is everywhere. It is all around us, within us, and is us. In fact, we cannot escape it. If it is so powerful, why not use it to create change?” he said.

One artist who answered Rizo’s call to action was Christina Valles, 26, a painter and writer from Phoenix. Valles said in an email she has known she wanted to be an artist since she was a little girl.

“I was always creating. My dad is an artist, and I loved watching him draw when I was younger. It inspired me to be creative,” Valles said. “When I was small, I definitely created for the fun of it, but as I got older it was a way to escape, especially with writing.”

Valles first heard about Artists 4 Liberation through social media. “I checked out their page and read their first post, which shared how their goal was to have Phoenix artists rise together and act against injustice,” Valles said. “I reached out asking how I could help and joined in at their next event.”

Valles felt connected to Rizo and his organization’s mission to combat injustice because she also saw art as the perfect medium to facilitate a positive change in the world and felt she had a duty as an artist to do just that.

“I believe that’s the entire purpose of art, is to create change. Art is meant to send a message,” Valles said. “It is the responsibility of every single artist right now to be using their talents and platforms to bring awareness to the genocide happening in Palestine, along with freeing Congo, Sudan, Yemen and all oppressed people who are suffering due to colonialism and white supremacy.”

Valles added that art and politics are historically intertwined and have been used as a way to communicate the voices of the unheard and raise the collective consciousness.

“Art is and always has been political,” Valles said. “(The) majority of people in America are completely unaware of the injustices taking place all over the world, all happening due to our government. A painting, shirt, photograph, book, etc., focused on spreading awareness is vital and a way of educating the masses.”

Another local artist who joined Artists 4 Liberations is Bianey Luna, 23, a painter and art student at Estrella Mountain Community College.

Similar to Valles, Luna’s father first introduced her to art. “Since I was a girl, he had introduced me to many Mexican or Mexican American artists and their work or driven me around Phoenix and showed me many murals here, and from there I was hooked in,” Luna said.

At first, Luna said art was only a hobby, as she didn’t think she could do anything with her paintings. However, as she got older, she realized the power art has to create change and decided to pursue it full force.

“As I got older, I wanted to make pieces of artwork around my culture, identity,” Luna said, noting she wanted to shine a line on issues around the world. “I was so tired of pursuing a degree in engineering that I decided to follow my heart and pursue my passion instead.”

“I challenged myself to use different kinds of mediums like oil paint, acrylic gouache and watercolor, and I have done and continue to do just that, and it inspired me to want to become an art professor,” she added.

Just like art, Luna said she got involved in activism at a young age and has been speaking up for oppressed groups for as long as she can remember.

“Since middle school, I have been an ‘activist’ especially within my community (Latino/Mexican),” she said in an email. “I have always spoken out about the injustices and mistreatment a lot of brown and Black immigrants receive in the United States.”

“My father has always told me, “ser la voz de los que no tienen voz” (be the voice for the voiceless). Silence is not acceptable, being neutral is not acceptable, we must keep standing for the people who cannot stand up for themselves, which is why I joined,” Artists 4 Liberation, Luna wrote.

Luna saw the same opportunity Rizo and Valles did to not only be an artist but to be an activist as well and facilitate a positive change through her art.

“Art is a form of activism, whether it is in photography, literacy, painting, drawing, hell, even protest boards is art, and it has the power to connect on a deep emotional level and it’s important we use our creations to raise awareness and advocate for social, environmental, or political causes,” Luna said.

Since joining the organization, Luna said she has been a part of numerous art events and has noticed the growing support toward the organization and its work.

Members believe art is a language people can use to express themselves and communicate a struggle, whether it be their own or someone else’s.

“For many of us, sharing our stories, feelings, trauma or identities through art is activism, whether we consider it to be or not,” Luna said in an email. “It has the capacity to humanize narratives both of ourselves and foreign to our own. Having the agency to create art that is of your own free will, using your own voice, in itself is an act of liberation and that has the power to evoke change.”

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