Raising your voice
I sometimes hesitate to tell things. But if I’m teaching people how to express themselves in a raw and honest way, then I have to be willing to do the same.
Sunday May 18th, I stood among 100.000 of other people on the Malieveld in The Hague, raising my voice for Gaza. And to be honest, it changed something essential in me.
Note to self: I won’t stay silent
I felt obliged to be there. Maybe because I was embarrassed that I had buried my head in the sand for so long. In recent years, I had barely paid attention to what was happening in the world. I simply wasn’t strong enough mentally to handle it. That’s often part of mental health struggles, I suppose. So I looked away. My own oxygen mask first.
But lately, something started to feel off.
Speaking up through art
I’ve grown stronger again this last year. And slowly, the awareness returned that as a creator, a human being, and a citizen of this time, I cannot stay silent. I started following the news again, took out a digital subscription to a newspaper*. And while working on my art-courses, where I want to teach people to speak up and express their inner truth, the question began to press: Am I honestly speaking up for what I stand for?
(* Note: I’m not saying you should do the same, I’d never say that. In fact, I truly understand what it feels like to have no bandwidth left for the horrors of existence.)
In the artistic online world, I notice how hard it is for people to speak out, especially when things become political or sensitive. Many artists or small business owners are afraid of criticism. Of being cancelled or losing clients. I understand that. (Artists are often sensitive people, lol.) I too have often stayed neutral, out of fear.
Until now.
Freedom of speech
One of the organizations that matters most to me is Amnesty International. Of course, there are many organizations doing good in the world. But as an artist, and also as the daughter of a hard-working labourer who spent years as the head of a union fighting to improve the working conditions of men in construction, freedom of speech and freedom of expression have always been among the values I hold most dearly.
Even when I disagree with someone, I still believe that every person in the world has the right to speak their truth. Activism begins with the right to speak. And when that right is taken away, we lose the ability to speak about everything else too: climate, inequality, justice.
When I saw Amnesty’s call to join the protest, I immediately felt ashamed that I hadn’t done so earlier.
So I had to go. I had no choice, really.
So I went. To that demonstration. Alone, but not lonely. On the contrary, I felt more connected with other people, than I have in a long time.
It’s often hard, to not to make ‘everything’ about myself. This wasn’t about my art. It wasn’t about me. It was about standing up for other people. But still, I can’t help it, the protest for me personally, was an existential turning point. On the train ride home, I sat next to an older woman in her early seventies. She was a volunteer at a small church in a little village in the south of the Netherlands. Her church had not spoken out about Gaza, which made her sad, she told me. Her daughter didn’t really understand her frustration either.
As we talked (she asked me what I did for a living), I told her about art journaling, about how you can give shape to rage, hope, grief, and love on paper. I saw something shift in her eyes. We laughed about how so-called ‘ugly’ or even childish paintings can hold so much truth.
Permission to make art
In that beautiful conversation, I think I gave her permission to make art about what she feels. And I’m quite sure that somewhere here in the Netherlands, there’s a lovely seventy-year-old woman amusing the h*ck out of herself with paint and scissors, expressing herself with wild joy.
It frustrates me to the core that political leaders so quickly label people who speak out about this subject as antisemites. That’s called gaslighting. It plants the idea in your head, that people who stand up for others are shameful. While these very same world leaders shamelessly use hateful language, about Latin Americans, about Muslims, or whoever suits their narrative.
I want to clearly underline that I have nothing against Jews, nothing against Muslims, nothing against anyone. The only kind of person I truly despise is the one who believes they are above others, who thinks their life is worth more, simply because they follow a different god, or because they have more money.
(For the record, I have neither. No god, no money — haha.)
Art is a voice
I came to The Hague to raise my voice. And I received something priceless in return. Something opened in me. More courage. More boldness. I don’t yet know how exactly I will give this a place in my work. What I do know is this: I have changed. And I want my work to reflect that. Not by shouting. But by being clear and sincere.
Because art is not ‘just’ decoration.
Art is a voice.