They're Going To Kill Me 1 Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

May 30 2020

Location: 

Texas

The Black, Dallas-based artist Jammie Holmes put George Floyd’s final words in a place where everyone could see them: the sky. Five days after Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, May 30th, Holmes’s piece took flight across Detroit, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. Airplanes carrying banners flew between the hours of 11:30 a.m. and 9 p.m. EDT. The words—like “They’re going to kill me” and “My neck hurts”—became impossible to overlook.

“I thought, because there is so much taking place on the ground, it only makes sense for something to happen in the sky,” Holmes said of the public art piece, titled They’re Going to Kill Me (2020), which was his first time working at such a scale. “Having George Floyd’s last words above the crowds allowed for a greater moment of silence, for peace, like when doves are released in the sky.” Holmes also put signs with Floyd’s final words on his website for the general public to print out and take to protests. “I saw it as a way to unify people. Even for those who would like to protest from farther away; if they couldn’t be on the ground, they could see the banner in the sky and participate in a larger movement.”

External sources: 

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-jammie-holmes-artist-george-floyds…
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/t-magazine/george-floyd-jammie-holmes-artist.…
Posted by Anika Pyle on Apr 19 2021

Staff rating: 

0

Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Activates (people)Energizes and organizes people into action. Can include emotion work
Amplifies (issue or campaign)Brings public and political attention to an issue or campaign.  Can include prefigurative action, making the invisible visible.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear short-term goal. Short-term goals tend to be things like: create or repeal a law; get a President impeached; make the city administration repair a sidewalk. A campaign with a short-term goal needs a clear theory of change, complete with targets that can be cajoled or pressured into effecting the goal.
Increase visibility for the murder of George Floyd
This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear long-term goal. Long-term goals tend to be things like: end racism; end homophobia; make the sun stand still in the sky. A campaign with a long-term goal also needs to have some kind of theory of change.
End police brutality