Ryan Williams (he/him)
I consider myself not an artist or designer but someone who simply solves problems via creation. What constitutes my creation is any object that wouldn’t exist, and would not have been birthed, save for my own birth and subsequent existence. And so in spite of me feeling my work is not anything beyond just creation, these creations are still very important to me as they are by my own definition all I have to offer the world. Because of this I’m highly interested in work which seeks to aid in solving problems that force the highest possible consideration of ethicality. Much like with a parent raising a child, good intentions are not enough and I must consider what the work will be received as and grow to become once it is outside of my hands and in the world. Once it has “grown up”. Keeping this in mind, I started working on a way to inform people about police brutality and abolition, one of the most sensitive and pressing topics of our time.
On State Violence
Through feedback, research, and my own experiences, I reasoned that people are most afraid of the police and conversely the idea of abolishing them because on average people don’t know what they would do when confronted with police or arrest, and yet also don’t know what they would do in a world without police. People needed to know what they were truly up against, and have plans of action for encounters with police. Hence the idea of the graphic book and brochure. The book is centered on explaining the flaws and problems with the police force, and the brochure is centered on what to do and who to contact should you run into them. Lastly, the website is the space for the dialectic between these two pieces, a place where their relationship is made clear. In total these three things I felt created an entry-level but comprehensive solution to the problem my question posed.
View project’s website: On State Violence
