Kate Just PROTEST SIGNS

Artist Statement

 PROTEST SIGNS are a series of intensively produced, hand-knitted pictures of protest signs mounted on canvas and wooden boards. Each picture or sign forms a knitted homage to a real image of protest the artist has collected on and offline including from social media, news media or real protests. This suite of knitted protest signs addresses a broad range of significant social and political issues of our time including feminism, sexual harassment and assault, reproductive freedom, LGBTQIA+ pride and discrimination, racism, sexism, transphobia, and ecological crisis. The intimate, complex translation of these hand-made signs into knitted form invites a close tactile engagement with the value of protest signs – which are usually ephemeral, dynamic, funny, made by everyday people with at hand material, and discarded after use. This body of work about the ‘signs of our times’ continues Just’s engagement with urgent social change movements and heralds the potential we all have to change the world with our own two hands.