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ToolsGrassilli, Mariagiulia (2022) Global Black Lives Matter, a Visual Essay:A Global Visual Journey of Black Lives Matter 2020. Darkmatter Journal (16).
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This visual essay is a global journey of the multiple demonstrations of protest and solidarity across the world, reflecting on how Black Lives Matter sparked actions of solidarity and demands for justice against police violence - everywhere connected by widespread inequality and institutional racism. In just one week hundreds of thousands of people mobilised and held protests in all fifty states of the United States and around the world. Social media, global news, graffiti, murals, and performances have visually accompanied the thousands of people who have marched across cities in every part of the world giving support to the Black Lives Matter movement sparked again in June 2020 by George Floyd's infamous murder. Local and global struggles have adapted the call for justice to their contexts of injustices whilst denouncing police brutality against Blacks and First People in the US and beyond. From the townships of Johannesburg to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the plains of South Dakota, a global movement was visually captured through smartphones, news reporters, viral videos and artwork. Performative parading and artistic actions were symbols of visual resistance alongside celebrity presence and filmmaker’s visual statements. A collage of images from multiple places in different contexts here aims to reflect on the powerful force of collective action and offer a visual sense of the protest. By selecting news clips, viral social media, photographs and videos, I have created a narrative to convey the power, diversity and global dimension of the Black Lives Matter as it erupted everywhere. The music inspired and framed the editing (here curated by Raffaello Rossini, editor of the visual essay). Testimonies from key speakers, policy makers (Cuomo), intellectuals (Cornel West), celebrities and activists led the analysis and reflections on the moment. I especially valued the effect of viewing these images together again after a year since the protest sparked, as images dissolve in the flows of visual communication. Some key moments that were visually captured were in fact striking, catalytic in fixing the moment, and transformative (see Kaur and Klinkert in this issue).
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | sdg 16 - peace, justice and strong institutions ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/peace_justice_and_strong_institutions |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Media, Language and Communication Studies |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Dec 2025 10:31 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Dec 2025 01:19 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101364 |
| DOI: |
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