Art of the March Boston
Just-In-Time preservation and documentation of 6000 protest signs of the Women’s march protest that took place on Jan. 21, shortly after President Trump’s inauguration. After the event, protestors arranged their signs along the fence of the old graveyard at the Boston Common. Struck by this ephemeral monument, a group of colleagues including Nathan Felde, Alessandra Renzi, Lucas Freeman, Alifa Rachmadia and myself spontaneously arranged for a collection of the signs after we learned that they were bound for disposal. With the help of volunteers, we collected, stored, sorted, classified and digitized every individual sign, which is currently the only complete collection of protest signs covering a major event.
Credits: Initiated by Alessandra Renzi, Nathan Felde, Dietmar Offenhuber. Visualizations & Web: Siqi Zhu, Navarjun Grewal, Christopher Pietsch, Colleen Curtis
Press coverage:
Zamudio-Suaréz, Fernanda. 2017. “In Discarded Women’s March Signs, Professors Saw a Chance to Save History.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 24.
Fleming, Nicole. 2017. “Volunteers Begin to Sort through Signs from Women’s March.” The Boston Globe, April
DeRuy, Emily. 2017. “Boston’s New Accidental Archive of Protest Posters.” CityLab. January 26.
DeRuy, Emily. 2017. “What Happens to Those Posters From the Women’s Marches.” The Atlantic. January 25.
Annear, Steve. 2017. “Professors Stash Boston Women’s March Rally Signs to Preserve a Piece of History.” The Boston Globe, January 23.
