Ink Tributes by Marlon West Exhibition Design (Museum of Social Justice Los Angeles)
This exhibition at Los Angeles’ Museum of Social Justice focused on the work from Marlon West’s portraitures of the heroes drawn with black ink on white paper.
“There isn’t a more American form of portraiture than black ‘inks’ over white, to honor those that faced this nation’s fear and loathing of the Black body.” - Marlon West
The goal for the design for the exhibition was to amplify the issues surrounding race based policing and other racial injustices over history. Using a “design-thinking” approach, the aim was to design an exhibition space using graphics, illustrations and textual information within a space of tribute for the heroes and people affected by police and racial violence centered around and before the Black Lives Matter movement.
West was making photo tableaus of action figures as a silly creative outlet between Zoom meetings and housework during Covid lockdown. Everything halted for him when the news reported the murder of George Floyd. He started drawing these comic-book-style illustrations as a tribute.
These are just some of the people featured in the exhibition:
Emmitt Till, Ahmaud Abrery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Caron Nazario, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Eugene Goodman, Andrew Goodman. Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, Philando Castile, Omar Jimenez, Amadou Diallo, Eric Garner, Cornelius Frederick, John Crawford III, Andrew Brown Jr, Michael Brown Jr, Elijah McClain, Botham Jean, Nina Pop, Vanessa Guillen, Sean Bell, Atatiana Jefferson, Raychard Brooks, Sandra Bland