Less Lethal Solutions
2019
site-specific action, guerilla intervention, custom silkscreened T-shirts and tote bags, photographic documentation
Dimensions variable
On Nov. 25th, 2018 US authorities fired tear gas into Tijuana, Mexico to repel asylum-seeking Central American migrants. It was revealed that this tear gas was manufactured by Safariland, a US-based global defense company owned by Warren B. Kanders, who was at the time, the Vice Chairman of the board at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
In response to the explicit connection between the documented injustices against asylum seeking Central American migrants and in solidarity with the Whitney Museum staff, I designed t-shirts and tote bags that co-branded Safariland’s subsidiary tear gas company’s slogan “Less Lethal Solutions” along with the Whitney Museum’s logo.
Utilizing the body as a vehicle to challenge this state violence against brown and black bodies, these t-shirts were utilized in a site-specific action at the sites in Tijuana, MX where the tear gas landed and guerrilla interventions inside the Whitney Museum’s galleries, cafe, gift shop, and outdoor spaces.
Additionally, the t-shirts and tote bags created for the Less Lethal Solutions project were for sale and 100% of the proceeds were donated to Border Angels, a non-profit human rights organization with offices in San Diego, CA and Tijuana, MX that conducts humanitarian work for migrants, including those who were tear gassed by Safariland tear gas while seeking asylum at the US/Mexico Border.
Warren Kanders would step down from the board in July 2019 in response to passionate public outcry, which included numerous protests on the museum’s grounds, an open letter from over 100 members of the museum’s staff calling for his resignation, several artists requesting their work to be taken out of the 2019 Whitney Biennial, and a petition signed by 120 theorists, critics, scholars, artists, curators, and others working in the art industry.
Warren Kanders may have resigned but to this day his name remains on the wall at the Whitney Museum, illuminating the ongoing and pervasive problem of toxic philanthropy in the arts.