Immediately after The People’s Climate March in the fall of 2014, Mayday Art Space opened its doors to Jeremy Scahill, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras to launch their news agency. This trio became the founding members and editors of The Intercept, an organization that was supposed to produce fearless, adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues.

As residence artist of Mayday at the time, I was given the humble honor to create a piece for this historic event. I opted for some mid-20th century-era pulp mash-ups to communicate the challenges of US journalists speaking truth to power. This piece was largely unfinished and in fact, was mounted to the wall still wet. Despite my own criticisms about its incomplete nature, the painting was well received. 

The Nation Books and The Intercept invited everyone to Mayday Art Space in Brooklyn New York to celebrate the paperback launch of Jeremy Scahill’s Dirty Wars and Laura Poitras’s new documentary. Both also spoke after the world premiere of the trailer for Pointras’ newest film, “Citizenfour”. The film is a story of Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the NSA’s surveillance program and his escape from the United States.

Greenwald, Pointras and Scahill all discussed the difficulties of protecting sources under the Obama administration, which has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all other presidents combined. It isn’t often Pulitzer-winning cavaliers of press freedom infiltrate the depths of Bushwick, but the infamous trio behind The Intercept were at Mayday and it was a great honor to provide the art behind them. Other distinguished guests included Jesselyn Radack and Thomas Drake.

Below is a link to this historic event. At the 1 hour 02 min 45-sec mark of the video, I get a special shout-out from this crew of journalists, some of whom I call friends.

Much love to the Mayday crew for letting me flex.

Ahéheé.

Side Note: 3 years later The Intercept covered my flaming colonial wagon installation at The People’s Climate March in Washington D.C. right after my time in Standing Rock.