Justice? 2021. Graphite on paper. 9x12 Inch. Available for purchase here.

This sketch was a response to the Australian parliament treatment of Brittany Higgins when she revealed she was raped at Parliament House. The written words are those of Prime Minister Scott Morrison talking about Higgins coming forward. Since then, a video designed to help Parliament House staff handle ‘serious incidents’ like these was put in place. Less than half of the required employees have viewed it.

Solidarity. 2021. Graphite on paper, 9x12in. NFS.

I sketched this drawing as a response to the inmates at Parklea Correctional Centre (NSW Australia) who, in July 2021, protested the prison conditions and racism. Using their clothes they spelled out “BLM” on the prison roof; using their bodies they showed solidarity with victims of police and prison brutality. National Indigenous Times and NITV reported that prison guards used “chemical munitions” on inmates after their protest, and restrained them. These young men risked their lives to speak for justice.

2021 marked 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC). As of September 2021, at least 478 Aboriginal people had died in prison or under police custody since then. There needs to be more international scrutiny of Australia’s terrible record, and Australia needs to take seriously and implement the RCIADIC’s 330+ recommendations.

It’s simply not who we are. 2021. Graphite on paper, 9x12in.

I sketched this thinking of the nearly 30,000 Haitian migrants who had passed through a camp on the banks of the Rio Grande in Texas when in September 2021, some migrants had bought food in Mexico. When crossing the river to return to the US, US border force used their horses and in some instances, long reins, to chase and turn them back.

Many of the migrants had been hoping to seek asylum in the US but the Biden administration has been deporting thousands of migrants back to Haiti. The migrants have been treated as some kind of problem to hide, to send away, with a narrative that how they were treated is “not who we are”. But there is a history and recurring pattern in which the US is implicated.

Unthanksgiving. 2021. Graphite on paper. 9x12 Inch.

Each year on Thanksgiving, the Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremony, aka #unthanksgiving, takes place on Alcatraz. I sketched this image while thinking about the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes, who wanted to build a community, spiritual, and ecological centre on Alcatraz, for and overseen by Native people. They occupied Alcatraz for 19 months - which at the time was unused surplus land. For a while, hundreds of people lived on the island. Although the government denied the occupiers’ proposal, their protest contributed to the end of the harmful termination laws and inspired further protests across the Americas.

For many people, Thanksgiving is a reminder of genocide of their peoples, theft of their lands and assault upon their culture. That’s a matter directly related to health promotion, which according to the World Health Organization is all about increasing people’s control over their health and determinants of their health.