States of Arrest

States of Arrest was born during a conversation amongst friends fighting for international liberation and a new way of being in the world. Several of those friends had recently been [physically] arrested, either at a Palestine Solidarity Encampment, or similar demonstration throughout New York in 2024. It struck me that my primary association with the term “arrest” was that of imposition, force, and detainment; when I spoke to others about this, they seemed to share this experience. As I began to think of what art can provide us in times of suppression, fear, and relentless misinformation, I once again turned to art as language, as communication–visual, written, verbal, and otherwise emotive. Returning to the word “arrest” I conceived of a way to trouble our primary associations, and engage in collective art-making around this troubling, in the hopes of building an archive of arresting imagery, thoughts, feelings, sounds, and ideas that allow us to reclaim the beauty and joy of being arrested, attracted, gripped, absorbed, riveted, engrossed, mesmerized, hypnotized, spellbound, bewitched, enthralled, enraptured, even captured, a word which, outside of its non-consensual context, also has its positive associations. By leaning in to this troubling, I am hopeful to create space for creative connection and joy, by pushing through preliminary impulses towards the more fertile land of nuance. The project will culminate in various forms, including a zine and digital publication of imagery, thoughts, feelings, sounds, and ideas generated from the prompt “I was arrested by…” in the hope that we find many more beautiful things to be arrested by than state violence and repression.