For This Climate Strike Poster Artist, Art Is a Survival Tool

Activist and artist Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo stands in her Oakland studio. Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo is an artist and activist in Oakland, CA. Through printmaking, painting, and sculpture, she illustrates the complexity of the voices in her community and sparks dialogue among the people who view her art. In advance of the Sept. 20 Global Climate Strike , we asked Branfman-Verissimo to make art inspired by the strike. She spoke with Earthjustice Communications Associate Lisa Pradhan, a friend and collaborator, about her creative process and the role of art in protest. This interview has been edited and condensed. I feel like you do a really great job of weaving your activism into your art. Can you tell me more about that relationship? The first thing that comes to my mind in terms of artists and their relationship to activism throughout history is that art is another language or tool to digest some of these heavy things or big political moments that are around us. Something that drew me to artmaking as a young person is the history of political posters and art that drove movements. Like, say, the Black Panthers: We all know the classic Black Panther, the Panther as the image […]

Click here to view original web page at For This Climate Strike Poster Artist, Art Is a Survival Tool