Soap Box Shout-Out
by Blythe Taylor
Soap Box Shout-Out set out to provide a platform for young people to have political discussions in public spaces, like the original soap boxes that people used to stand on top of and project their voice out into the streets.
I was commissioned by Urban Wilderness as part of their Happenings Festival of Public Art during a period when I was organising around the ‘Kill The Bill’ protests, defending our very right to protest.
As an activist and artist this project made me consider where my arts practice and my political activism meet, this continues to be an ongoing question for me.
It was important for this project to encourage the young people I worked with to consider their rights and establish a right to demand change.
I held three workshops, one at Hanley’s ‘Better World Festival’, one at Changes Health and Wellbeing, and another at the ‘Youth Action Day’ at Longton Exchange.
During these workshops we talked about what a better world would look like and what their demands were for their futures. The key issues which reoccurred consistently were discrimination, mental health and the environment, in particular plastic pollution.
The idea to create a manifesto bringing together young peoples ideas and demands was brought to life using a Riso printer. Riso printers or risographs are the fastest printers, making them the popular choice for political parties who need to print large quantities of campaigning material quickly.
Designing the manifesto was a project within itself and one I loved from start to finish. Using the text and illustrations from each workshop, I cut and pasted, scanned and resized different elements. Because I had decided to use the riso scanner to print my design, each layer of colour was assembled on separate layers of tracing paper which would then be scanned into the riso to print.
My hopes for Soap Box Shout-Out are that it will continue to develop spaces for discussion and creative collaborations, inspire young people to work together for the collective struggles we face and help me grapple with my questions around art and activism.
