This poster was designed by Belfast artist Elly Makem in order to promote the documentary film Let Us Be Seen, directed by Elspeth Vischer. The design features an activist shouting through a megaphone and is in bold, striking colours to indicate feminist mobilisation in the north of Ireland and carry the visual momentum of a uniting rally cry that is synonymous with the film's title 'Let Us Be Seen'. Variants of this artwork were used digitally to promote the film as well as printed and put up as A3 posters and A5 flyers. Badges were also made of a simplified version of this image. All of this merchandise was sold at screenings of Let Us Be Seen in Belfast in order to raise funds for 'She Sells Sanctuary' a domestic violence charity in Northern Ireland that features in the film.
ARTISTS BIOGRAPHY
Elly Makem (Elly Makes) is a Belfast-based illustrator specialising in bright designs and visual narratives.
Elspeth Vischer is a filmmaker and educator based in Belfast specialising in documentary and experimental traditions.
- - -
Linked in the description, “Save Clinic 554!” drawings were produced by participants in Pride/Swell: An art, archiving activism project with 2SLGBTQ+ youth in Atlantic Canada. The drawings respond to the closure of a New Brunswick Clinic that provided reproductive services, abortion and gender affirming care.
The images were produced in research projects that sought to disrupt the erasure of queer and trans experiences and reproductive justice from New Brunswick, Canada school curricula. Because abortion is restricted to three hospitals in only two cities in the province, access is limited. Both visuals offer a way to speak back to these injustices. In the drawings, the artists offer their thoughts on what it meant to lose the only clinic in the province that specialized in gender affirming care and also provided reproductive services including abortion. The texts offer an example of what small resistances can look like in the face of reproductive injustice.
Pride/Swell (https://prideswell.org) is social distance art & activism project with 2SLGBTQ+ youth from across Atlantic Canada. For one year, 50 2SLGBTQ+ youth from across Atlantic Canada received a package in the mail that contains 1) art supplies; and 2) a prompt. These prompts explored issues including: queering environmental futures, intersectional queer identities, relationships to home, connection and care.
