Hot off the presses… These Walls Must Fall campaigners VVIDY (Voice for Voiceless Immigration Detainees Yorkshire) today launch four brand new, limited edition campaign t-shirts, for sale now on the Right to Remain shop.
All funds raised by these t-shirts will go directly to the local These Walls Must Fall campaign in Yorkshire, helping people at risk of detention to lead the campaign to end the system.
The four designs were developed by VVIDY members, each slogan and colour scheme written by a member of the group. When you go to purchase, you’ll see in depth descriptions of the meaning behind the design, from the designer.
Don’t keep me behind the walls, dark room, you are also keeping my skills, experiences, qualifications and knowledge, let me contribute using my skills, let me fly like a bird, end the inhuman detention, These Wall Must Fall.
Suman, on the inspiration behind his design
Our Organiser for South Yorkshire, Rosie, spoke to members of VVIDY, and Visual Artist Amelia Hawk who facilitated the design and creative process that led to the production of these designs in August 2020, about the process that led to the designs.
I want to enable people who read the messages on our t-shirts to understand that there are organisations and people capable of making their plights heard. Our objective is also to challenge publicly the authorities and inform people about the (dire) living conditions of minorities whose voices are silenced.
Fami
In the depths of the first lockdown, These Walls Must Fall supporter Amelia responded to our call out for volunteers and offered her skills as an artist. She’d previously done some brilliant work on designed campaign t-shirts around deportations and the impact of austerity, which you can see more of on her website. She, Rosie, and Bryan – one of the campaigners in VVIDY who campaign for These Walls Must Fall – came up with a plan to run two workshops for campaigners to develop understanding of campaign messaging, as part of the These Walls Must Fall ‘Campaigner Development Programme’ of training and coaching that has been running since April this year. What was new to all of us was how to adapt an arts based project to work remotely, on Zoom! It was a challenge, but one everyone rose to. Art materials were sent out in the post, and designs developed live in Zoom workshops collaboratively, using creative facilitation techniques to get the artistic ideas flowing!
I didn’t know you can actually do things online, like we did. Everything has been done online and at first my question was – how are we actually going to do it? I am on my own. But we did things together, and it went very well.
Bryan
In between the two workshops, other These Walls Must Fall campaigners from across the UK gave feedback on the designs and took part in a focus group with the designers. The process, ending in a heated democratic process (using Sli.do) to vote for the group’s favourite four designs that would make it to sale, whittled down from many more! Amelia then spent several weeks in 1-1 meetings with the successful designers to finalise their images, and they were eventually sent to the lovely printers (we use Vino Sangre in Norwich – check them out!).
It was a scintillating experience to design a T-shirt which depicts the graphics [and] phrases [of] which we have lived experience.
VVIDY Member
The t-shirts are now available to purchase, and we would like to thank everyone involved in the process. VVIDY members, Amelia, the Focus Group members, and the volunteer now doing the orders and shipping. Amelia said of the project, “It was such a pleasure to work with the group to translate stories and experiences into personal designs that people can wear, and share important messages with the world.” The t-shirts are Limited Edition and in very limited numbers, so once they’re gone, they’re gone!