Defend / Defund
Interference Archive, October 8, 2022 – January 29, 2023: Defend / Defund
“Defend / Defund looks at resistance to policing and police brutality in the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States. This exhibition focuses on the work of Black organizers and the families of victims of police violence who have fought the often brutal occupation of their communities. It also looks at allies and co-conspirators in the movement including Indigenous, Asian American, Latinx, and queer organizers. The show highlights a diversity of tactics: the use of armed self-defense patrols by Robert F William’s armed branch of the NAACP and the Black Panther Party, methods for documenting police abuse and memorializing victims including CopWatch and the Stolen Lives Project, and media projects that have critically responded to police propaganda in the mainstream press. We invite viewers to also consider the legacy of abolitionist practice and tactics from queer and Black feminist organizers like Critical Resistance, INCITE!, and Survived & Punished that have pushed for bail reform, decriminalization for drug users and sex workers, and have developed non-carceral responses to violence in their communities. This fight continues today and impacts the lives of millions; the modern Defund movement, rooted in abolitionist practice, seeks to protect vulnerable communities from police violence, divest in the carceral system, and invest in true public safety and well-being. We hope you will explore the history of the struggle against police violence and add to the narrative on how carceral systems shape our lives today.”
Additional reading:
BAM Film Series: Watch the Cops! Policing New York in the Movies
Brookings, May 19, 2021: 7 myths about “defunding the police” debunked
