[Louis]

1. Visual arts definitely has the power to greatly bring social change upon society. They are able to send quick but bold messages to a wide range of observers who will see such work of art and be moved to spread or promote the call for change that is being portrayed or pushed.

2. In the first art project “Stop Telling Women To Smile”, an art piece that stood out to me was called “Participate”. In this art piece, there is a set of drawings of different women with captions or quotes that they have dictated, and are placed under each drawing. The quotes each show what a woman feels when it comes to being judged, looked upon, or even treated rudely or violently by men, and that they are standing up against all these issues. This is powerful because each and every woman is voicing her own opinion, in order to represent a collective message.

In the second art project “Know Your Rights”, I came across a mural from Fordham, Bronx. The mural was portraying to viewers that they must know their rights, and take advantage of the opportunity whenever they may feel threatened or are being harassed by police officers. I liked this because a community is becoming aware of the danger of being stopped by NYPD, especially if they are black, and by showing this mural, they will be able to know what exactly. to do whenever a situation like that may occur.

[Elliot Vidalon]

The visual of ‘Stop Telling Women To Smile’ shouts out very clever that conspires by relevant events such as women’s rights. I admire for their stand out, best respect much about women and dearly concerned for their lives. I image that they’re women before this book published who weren’t able to defend themselves from men power and either women had to rely on men or for other selfish reasons. It’s depressing to think about events that occurred to only women such as sexual harassment, mistreated rights and their voice weren’t heard when they need it the most. I understand the pity that women had to go though and it’s hard to just ignore a woman crying for help. This visual is the motivation of all women’s hope, giving them reasons to fight back for their rights, showing their true nature of their capability and to be heard for equal rights. This title can mean a lot depend how we look at it, in my case let’s say a woman has been physically and mentally mistreated from men and the man will always want to force the woman or wife to smile at front of them, but the reality for women’s perceptive it’s like holding your sufferings and tears of sadness behind those smiles. I honesty cannot stand for it, seeing a woman living like this, even my parent will bet to say much the same. This is just my perspective when I see this visual, the title and it can mean a lot for others depend of their past events. Of course the author may have another story but I know for sure those causes were meant to be for the same purpose.

[Pema Choesang]

The visual art is powerful outlet to make social change because of following reasons;
It creates pictures alongside the text which helps audiences to remember the message the person or organization trying to get across.
It enhances the publicity since the visual art attracts more viewer in comparison to mere text.

Personally, i think the project “stop telling women to smile” is particularly more interesting and effective because it includes pictures with brief sentences to depicts the issues regarding women harassment. I liked the way they incorporate the picture with the text which not only make viewers to have a look into picture not but also spread the awareness through effective approach.

[Edward]

1. Visual Art does have the power to create social change, the murals and the poster in theses articles have the power to create social change. These art projects are trying to send out a message out to the people these people want there words to be heard from everyone. In “Stop Telling Women to Smile is about an artist who visits different states and talks to females and hears there story about harassment. She then draws a self portrait of the female with a strong meaningful quote attached to there self portrait. Her art is strong because you can feel the pain these ladies have been through. In “Know Your Rights” its about murals that are all around New York, and there message they trying to get out is that we the people have rights to stand up for our self’s when it comes to the police. They also use vibrant colors to show how urgent there message is.

2. An image that stood out the most to me was from “know Your Rights” its called Sunset Park 2016 2. This mural stood out the most to me, this mural has a strong and understanding message behind it. The artist used these vibrant colors to show how he want there to be peace and unity amongst the people. And those vibrant colors are what makes the mural effective.

[haroodg]

I believe that visual art has the power to create a huge social change. From a simple picture to a huge mural on the side of a building can have profound and lasting effects on a person and community. The overall message of visual art will mostly be apparent or conveyed to the viewer but the way it impacts them is different from person to person. It can cause the viewer to feel joy, sadness, anger, disbelief, stressed, etc. with are all valid emotions but they have one thing in common. They “changed” the viewer positively or negatively. No matter the reaction or interpretation of visual art a change will always occur.
I found the image located in Paris, France from “Stop Telling Women to Smile” interesting and because of the language it was written in. I come from a French/ creole speaking household, therefore, any chance I get to read french I take it since I am sub-par at best with the language. If I saw this image personally on the street beside the other images I would stop for the one in french.