Editor’s note: Monica Trinidad of Chicago’s Artists for Brandon Johnson is interviewed below by Chris Mahin of the People’s Tribune Election Desk about the upcoming Chicago mayoral election. You can reach Chicago Artists for Brandon Johnson at https://linktr.ee/artists4brandonjohnson
1. Please tell our readers a little about yourself and how you came to create the art that you do.
My name is Monica Trinidad and I’ve been organizing with artists and creating visual art for and with social justice movements in Chicago and nationally for a little over eight years now. I started out creating little paintings and drawings that captured moments at recent protests I attended that were inspiring to me. I recognized the power that art had in energizing and moving people, and how accessible it was, and so I started educating myself on the long legacy of art used as a tool for radical change, and as an integral part of movements and organizing.
2. What is compelling to you about Brandon Johnson’s platform?
Every part of Brandon Johnson’s platform has been informed by the lived experiences and wisdom of our city’s most marginalized communities. It’s rooted in care. From immigrants to LGBTQ+ people of color, from disabled people to houseless people, his platform has been built from the ground up. It actually feels more like the People’s platform than Brandon Johnson’s platform. The multi-racial, intergenerational, and intersectional effort of community organizers coming together from across the city, with all the electric energy that they bring, has been the most invigorating for me! It’s hard not to feel excited about all of the possibilities for our city when Brandon wins.
3. Why Artists for Brandon Johnson? How did it come into being? How does the group hope to mobilize Chicago’s cultural community?
Sometime in late February, I think maybe a week before the primary election, a few artists and I were brainstorming how to boost public support for Brandon Johnson, a candidate we felt was our best option for moving us towards a more just and equitable city. We aimed to gather at least 100 signatures from artists, arts workers, and cultural producers across the city. We released with 100 signatories gathered with direct outreach in a week, and overnight we got 100 more signatures. It wasn’t hard to get to 400+ signatures, and the effort has since morphed into a very decentralized effort from artists across the city, 65+ neighborhoods actually, getting creative in boosting Brandon Johnson’s visibility and the energy surrounding his campaign. It’s a wide variety of artists, too—illustrators, graphic designers, playwrights, filmmakers, poets, teaching artists, performers, dancers, musicians, stage managers, art professors, arts administrators, and so many more, the list is endless. I hope people recognize not only the power of art, but the power that artists have if we come together.
4. How can people contact Artists for Brandon Johnson and help your efforts? (In particular — How can they reach Artists for Brandon Johnson on social media?)
You can email artists4brandonjohnson@gmail.com or follow us on Instagram at @artists4brandonjohnson. We’re encouraging all Chicago artists and cultural producers to get creative in whatever capacity you can to express your public support for Brandon Johnson! Whether it’s a digital illustration or a recorded performance; send it to us, or tag us, and we’ll boost it with our networks.
5. What is your vision for Artists for Brandon Johnson after the election?
There are so many community-based, socially-engaged arts organizations and collectives that exist already throughout our city, we’re not trying to create a new organization out of this. My biggest hope is that we all stay connected through this effort, and support and lift up each other’s work even more than before. Should we need to come together again to fight for the people of Chicago, we’ll be that much stronger.
Chris Mahin is a writer, speaker and teacher on contemporary U.S. politics and history, particularly on the significance of the American Revolutionary War and Civil war eras for today. He is the Electoral Desk on the People’s Tribune Editorial Board.
