The craft of drawing has an important role to play in shining a spotlight on the people and places left unseen.

Artist and journalist Molly Crabapple joined an audience at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 6 April to discuss the unique purpose of her art in uncovering injustice and activism around the world. She also held a book signing session for her recently released memoir Drawing Blood, a colourful mix of autobiographical writing and illustrations.

How to draw censorship, how to draw the unseen? Great talk by @mollycrabapple at @FrontlineClub

— Veronique Mistiaen (@VeroMistiaen) April 6, 2016

Starting out as a model and artist in the sex industry, Crabapple has gone on to draw and report from Guantanamo Bay, Syria, the West Bank, Iraqi Kurdistan, and became a crucial voice during New York’s Occupy Movement in 2011. Long-time friend and journalist Natasha Lennard joined Crabapple to chair the discussion, describing her as “a crucial voice of our time, in a moment when journalism is in flux and open for necessary experimentation.” Lennard began by asking her motivations for using art for journalistic purposes.

“Photojournalists, they went into the world and captured everything, captured a story, they captured all these people and all these places,” Crabapple replied. “And I thought, my god, we artists used to do that before the camera came. The camera stole the image-making power from us. And I wanted to do that too.”

Her first assignment as a journalist was in 2013, when she visited Guantanamo Bay to document the detention centre and its inmates. Later that year, she was shortlisted for a Frontline Award for her stark portrayal of the prison, and the anonymous figures locked within its walls.

By Molly Crabapple

“Guantanamo is the most visually censored place on earth,” she explained. “Guantanamo is a place that if you were a photographer, your camera would be rifled through by a soldier at the end of every single session. But… I was able to draw Guantanamo Bay in a way that a photographer cannot photograph it. Not only that, but to draw the censorship itself. To make it explicit.”

Continuing on the theme of censorship, the duo turned to Crabapple‘s work with a Syrian journalist in Raqqa in 2015. She created a series of illustrations from photographs sent from Syria for Vanity Fair showing daily life under ISIS rule, areas too dangerous for most photojournalists to access.

“One of the projects that I’m proudest of was this project I did with a young Syrian writer named Marwan Hisham,” Crabapple elaborated. “I wanted to take images of daily life from ISIS-held territory and not the usual gory images of severed heads that we see on the news. Images of children going through the trash trying to find something to sell, or images of families on breadlines. Images of just daily prosaic life there. I wanted to, with my own skills as an artist, imbue them with craft and all the attention and time that a photojournalist would normally view something with.”

By Molly Crabapple

One audience member asked, given the traumatic and sometimes horrifying nature of the material she was dealing with, how drawing Syria had affected her.

Crabapple replied: “I am completely in awe of courage, of Syrian journalists working in the field, and the intense risks that they take… No one even cares if they die. It’s staggering and I feel a sense of shame. That’s how it transforms me, it gives me a sense of shame because in many ways my collaborators are better than me.”

Throughout the evening, many people in the audience expressed gratitude to Crabapple for her work, adding that it encouraged them to explore politics, human vulnerability and activism through art. After thanking her, one audience member asked Crabapple how she would imagine an ideal world.

“I think we are facing a fundamental challenge to the idea of borders,” Crabapple responded. “I think with the internet and the way people interact globally, that the way people are chained if they have ‘poor-world passports’, despite these global interactions that they have… I think that cannot stand. The ‘First World’ is going to have a choice– to either be part of the rest of the world, which they’ve often been exploiting… or they can engage in massive violence to keep the rest of the world out. I fear very desperately that they’re going to choose the second. But a small step toward making the world better might be them choosing the first.”

The Frontline Club began its June documentary programme on Monday 1 with a retrospective look at various forms of non-violent protests in the cross-media documentary, Everyday Rebellion. The film was directed by the Riahi brothers and Arman Riahi was present for a lively Q&A after the screening.

To summarise, Everyday Rebellion is a tribute to civil disobedience in its various forms, from Tahrir Square to Occupy Wall Street. It is a record of some of the creative ways in which individuals have challenged oppressive norms, be it the authoritarian regime in Syria or mass unemployment and austerity policies in Spain. As the subjects of the film challenge the status quo, so too is the documentary film’s aesthetic style non-conformist. The Riahi brothers filmed over two years, and collected more than 14,000 hours of material from over seven countries. The result is a juxtaposition of talking head interviews, observational narratives and amateur mobile phone footage.

Riahi explained that the film was partly inspired by the brothers’ Iranian identity and their parents’ direct experience of curtailed freedoms. The film features a number of Iranian citizens who enact small, habitual acts of resistance. A woman paints her toenails red, for example.

Riahi said:  “On the outside everyone is living how the regime wants and behind the curtain people are living western lives.”

He continued: “We began with Iran and quickly history happened; very soon the Arab Spring came… To be honest it was too fast for us. It was a time where every week something was happening.”

Apart from celebrating non-violent resistance, Riahi readily admitted that the film was intended to actively inspire protest in, crucially, “non-violent ways.”

Riahi spoke about the ways in which the film had been used since its release. “At some point we got a message from the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong – they asked to screen the film on the main square of the Umbrella Movement, where it was shown at least six times.”

Apart from sharing tactics for voicing dissent, the film highlights the importance of camaraderie among civilian protesters. By focusing on the similarities between various protest movements, the film instills a sense of transnational, cross-cultural power in the protester.

“The project is about inspiration and empowerment; we wanted to give people the feeling that there are people like them,” explained Riahi.

Great to see @EricaChenoweth in Arman Riahi's film #EverydayRebellion @frontlineclub documenting powerful #nonviolent movements @nvconflict

— Natasha Dyer (@nrlcadyer) June 1, 2015

A number of audience members questioned whether non-violent tactics are effective in defeating groups such as ISIS, or in challenging complex capitalist systems.

Riahi’s response brought into light the disparity between tactics and results: “Solutions don’t come overnight.”

Evidently the result of overthrowing a leader, as was the case in Egypt, is often the disheartening discovery that their system is deeply entrenched. As Riahi said: “If you change a system, only then do you see that beneath the system there is another system.”

The film nevertheless offered one tangible example of how non-violent resistance can lead to change: a court hearing in the 1980s, in which victims spoke out against atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic against their family members.

Accountability was a key theme pushed by many of the film’s protagonists: including Serbian political activist Srdja Popovic; Femen activist Inna Shevchenko; Yes Men activist Jacques Servin; and Reverend Billy. This lead to an audience observation that those able to occupy public spaces are often from a middle class background, and can therefore afford to act on their beliefs. Riahi agreed that this was often the case initially.

The role of the Internet in helping spread protest to civil society was an important point in the discussion. While not undermining its centrality, Riahi said of social media tools: “It’s not a substitution for going to the streets and being there when things need to be done.”

Riahi also criticised the failure of mainstream media to cover non-violent protest, mainly, he reasoned, because “it does not sell as much as the guns and blood.”

Riahi concluded: “We knew this project was more than a film, because we knew of the restrictions in film and cinema.”

The cross-media platform continues to tell stories and showcase non-violent protest across the globe; visit the Everyday Rebellion website to find out more.

“Creativity always wins out over power.”

– Srdja Popovic

To mark the release of his new book, Blueprint for Revolution: How to use rice pudding, Lego men, and other non-violent techniques to galvanise communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world, the Frontline Club hosted a conversation with Serbian author and activist Srdja Popovic chaired by Steve Crawshaw from Amnesty International.

Popovic, who consults with political activists across the world in his role as executive director of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), began by underlining the motivations behind the book.

“There are many fascinating stories you learn from working with activists across the world. And one of the things you feel is the first thing in any revolution happens in your head. People imagine these revolutionaries as heroes in the Che Guevara mould… but hanging out with these people you come to realize that they are like you and me.”

Pushed by Crawshaw over whether the use of non-violent strategies worked for so-called ‘soft’ power but failed in more extreme cases, such as Russia and Syria where power has become more entrenched, Popovic referred to the phrase often repeated by local activists.

“There are always reasons why it can never happen here, (either in Syria because the state is too repressive or in the UK because people are too apathetic). And they are right. Every single context is different. Even the title of the book is cynical; there is no such thing as a blueprint for revolution. People need to dream their own country, you need creativity, you need numbers and you can’t really borrow this from somebody else… but what we are talking about is a set of tools that are the same.”

Popovic countered claims of internationalising activism, often levelled at organisations such as CANVAS and used by governments to re-define national non-violent protests, by re-asserting that all these struggles must be indigenous but that each can learn from a basic tool-kit. Most importantly, Popovic cited the most common failures of a revolution – the inability to follow up a successful revolution with a vocabulary of democratic transition.

From experiencing the disunity of the opposition in Serbia under Milosevic right through to the disparate opposition groups in Syria, Popovic emphasised the need for organisation, planning and discipline within political protest movements, claiming that despite the popular perception that revolutions are spontaneous acts, “there are in the end only two types of non-violent revolution: the spontaneous and the successful. You can’t have both.”

Charting the evolution of protests during the Arab Spring from non-violent to violence, Popovic stressed the need to objectively look at previous revolutions to determine the most effective strategy.

“Out of 323 struggles in the last century, 52% of non-violent struggles were effective as opposed to 26% of violent struggles. Simply speaking you want to go back to Sun Tzu who said that if you want to win a war you need to put your strong points against your opponent’s weak points.”

From Tienanmen to the protests in Tahrir Square, the most successful revolutions build from small victories, in what he termed ‘dilemma actions’ – doing something everybody can do – picking the battles that you can win and recognising the moment when momentum turns in a movement.

“The easiest way to imagine this type of struggle is as a video game which works on multiple levels. Non-violent struggle is like stairs and the problem is that we only see the goal of ‘game over’. Like going to the theatre and only seeing the last act we do not see what has preceded it.”

Specifically analysing the problems of Occupy, Popovic criticised the movements’ inability to articulate clear objectives and translate public anger into hope. Secondly, the problem lay in the decision making process that Occupy adopted, in “the thought that somehow getting organised would harm the cause of their struggle”. Thirdly was a question of branding. By terming the movement Occupy you made a movement out of a tactic and limited it to a small group of people who already think the same. Instead, Popovic suggested that by terming the protest the 99% it becomes an inclusive social inequality movement.

When asked about the tendency or desire to define a protest as a binary Good vs. Evil struggle, Popovic said that “too often people get excited about demonizing the person, political party or system as the centre of evil and build their own reality around it.” Instead, what he learned and what he tries to teach groups is to think in a different way.

“The main difference between violent and non-violent struggle is in the direction. In violent struggle you push, whether you are throwing stones or sending in tanks, in non-violent struggle you pull. If you want to pull people out of the system you can’t convert someone you are trying to kill.”

From his own experience in Serbia where the tactic of protesting police barricades shifted from howls of dissent to giving them cakes and flowers, Popovic concluded by discussing how and why humour works as a fundamental strategy for non-violent protest: through attracting participation in activism by increasing the ‘cool factor’ of protests, through the intentionally teasing authorities through mockery and by utilising humour as a fear breaker.

“If you get back to the idea of the video game and you look at the status quo force in society, these are either fear or apathy. Whereas if you look at game-changing factors it is enthusiasm, social mobilisation and commitment and so if you see one going up and the other going down you can predict and affect the outcome.”

In 2000, Srdja Popovic was one of the leaders of the Serbian nonviolent resistance group Otpor! that helped topple Slobodan Milošević. Then in 2003 he decided to use his experience to help pro-democracy activists around the world, teaching them how to bring down a dictator.

From the streets of Egypt to New York, Popovic teaches a toolkit of resistance, promoting the use of non-violence to achieve political and social goals.

In his new book, Blueprint for Revolution, Popovic documents his own journey from Belgrade rock kid to revolutionary leader, as well as sharing the stories of the many revolutionaries he has met along the way.

He will be joining us in conversation with Steve Crawshaw, director of the office of the secretary general at Amnesty International and co-author of Small Acts of Resistance, to share his story and the ingenious ways in which non-violent resistance has achieved its means around the world, from Occupy Wall Street to Tahrir Square, and from Nelson Mandela to Harvey Milk.

Srdja Popovic is a Serbian biologist, political activist and executive director of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). As the director of CANVAS, Popovic has consulted with revolutionary activists from countries including Egypt, Syria and Tunisia. The PRIO tipped him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Wired listed him as one of 50 people who will change the world and he was one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders for 2013.

The first of our Film Africa screenings, celebrating the best African fiction and documentary films across the continent, is El Problema, while on Friday Sorious Samura and Anas Aremeyaw Anas will be at Frontline Club for the launch of Africa Investigates. 

Next week we will be joined by The Guardian‘s Jonathan Steele to discuss the craft of the foreign correspondent and a 40-year career that has seen him cover events across the world.

Don’t forget to join us for our November Club Quiz on Thursday evening.

Follow us on Twitter and catch up on any events you missed on the Forum blog or download our podcasts on iTunes.
ALL EVENTS ARE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC