We'll never forget 2020. It started out strong, until what felt like distant murmurs of the pandemic hit our city dead on, and once we went into lockdown the shock to our collective system was total and undeniable. Empty streets. Endless hand-washing and disinfecting. Parking lots full of freezer trucks. Then, in Minneapolis, the execution of George Floyd at the hands of a white cop. Brief riots followed by sustained, peaceful protests. Many arrests, more police violence. All the other names that we will never forget. A racist future ex-President. A curfew, police helicopters circling the city, every day and night, even long after the curfew was lifted. And fireworks, every single night through Juneteenth and continuing into the summer. And that was only the first half of the year.
In the face of all that happened, the continuing resurgence of graffiti in NYC hardly seems important. But if you are reading this then you know that of course it mattered. Like the virus it was undeniable and it was everywhere, but unlike it, graffiti offered a dash of hope and life in our struggling city. Documenting it provided literally a way out, a way to reconnect with the city every day on a human level, away from the news cycle, the suffering and the injustice.
Issue VII consists of hundreds of shots of street bombing from the first six months of 2020. (Issue VIII will cover the rest of the year.) I'm grateful that I had the privilege to be out there and take photos and I'm also really proud of how this book came out. Thank you for your support. It means the world to me.
BNY VII is perfect-bound, 6x9", with 128 pages and screen printed covers. Limited to 1,000 hand-numbered copies; each comes with a set of three vinyl stickers designed by DEK 2DX.
