Artist Shanina Dionna Depicts Black Lives Matter Protest In New Port Richmond Billboard Installation

Love this new temporary installation from Philly-based artist Shanina Dionna that’s replaced an ad with art at Lehigh and Aramingo Avenues in the Port Richmond/ Kensington area!

This is one of a series of art takeovers presented by SaveArtSpace‘s Whistling in the Dark project, a cross-media, tri-city, public art exhibition curated by Caledonia Curry (aka Swoon) and Gianni Lee that’s currently displaying art on billboards in New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.

Shanina’s artwork, titled “Show Up” (2020), depicts COVID-masked protesters standing in front of a line of police outside Philadelphia’s MSB Plaza with some of those protesters holding up their fists and/or signs. Based off the context and timing of this work, it’s presumable that it depicts a Black Lives Matter protest. And of the two protest signs being held up by individuals illustrated in the artwork one reads, “Enough is enough,” the other, “RIP Christopher Ridley.” The latter being the name of an off-duty police officer who was killed by on-duty police officers when he tried to break up a fight on the streets of White Plains, New York in 2008. Christopher Ridley was a 23-year-old Black man in plain clothes, the officers who killed him were found not liable by a federal grand jury.

If you’re interested in supporting the artist, Shanina is selling prints of this artwork starting at $25 on her web-store.

P.s. You may remember that Shanina is currently exhibiting a mural with us at Streets Dept Walls, if you haven’t checked that out yet. And Caledonia Curry (Swoon) was one of the first people I ever interviewed for my Streets Dept Podcast, and you can listen to that episode here.