For the last week, a slideshow has been playing on the side of Neumos at 10th and Pike. Over the course of three and a half minutes, photos show about 50 people wearing shirts that say “Everyone knows I had an abortion.” The slideshow is an art installation created by the pro-choice hashtag-turned-nonprofit #ShoutYourAbortion, but it’s not what a crowd gathered on Friday night had come to see.
Earlier in the day, Kanye tweeted this:
FAMOUS VIEWINGS IN SEATTLE STARTING @ 9:30PM 1st AVENUE SOUTH AND S MAIN STREET E PIKE STREET AND 10TH AVENUE
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) July 2, 2016
“Famous,” which sparked controversy after it was first screened on June 24, was for a while only available on Tidal. (It’s now on YouTube.) So, people showed up to watch it. Instead, they saw #ShoutYourAbortion’s installation.
SYA founder Amelia Bonow asked the people standing around for Kanye what they thought was up with all this abortion stuff. Here’s what she heard:
According to Bonow, “Famous” was actually projected on a garage door nearby but that happened after most of the people in the video had left. (It’s worth noting Kanye’s record on abortion.)
I’m not sure how productive the interactions were—Bonow doesn’t reveal that she helped create the installation and responses include things like “It’s such a controversial issue anyway, so…”—but the timing of the two videos was an interesting coincidence.
Last Monday, I went to the unveiling of SYA’s installation, which also made appearances in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago and includes the video and posters available for free online. The atmosphere was celebratory—the Supreme Court had just struck down restrictive rules on Texas abortion clinics—and I arrived ready to celebrate too.
But I left the whole thing feeling strange. The activism rang hollow. It felt more about well-meaning Capitol Hill scenesters hoping to be seen by other well-meaning Capitol Hill scenesters than about making change. And what change were they aiming to make anyway, I wondered, projecting the video on the side of a bar in one of the most progressive neighborhoods of one of the country’s most progressive cities? (Not that Capitol Hill always lives up to that reputation.) As women, including many in the northwest, continue to face severe barriers accessing abortions, what do we gain by preaching to the choir? Where were the installations on the sides of right-wing churches or the women taking the mic? As Bonow acknowledged in her remarks at the event, “defeating regression” is not the same as progress.
I’m still working through those feelings. But the Kanye coincidence reminded me that not everyone who saw the installation during the week it was up meant to. I don’t know whether anyone who showed up for “Famous” on Friday night ended up having a substantive talk with their friends about abortion or whether they just shrugged and left. But they were just a small group of the hundreds who walked by over the week. If SYA’s project is going to change anyone’s mind, it’s not going to be the already fervent pro-choicers who showed up the night it opened. It’s going to be the people it takes by surprise. Whether he meant to or not, Kanye may have just helped that effort.
