David Najib Kasir’s work at the Urban Ecology Center/Menomonee Valley

Three newspaper boxes, once used to distribute the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (and donated by the media company), were reimagined as deeply personal expressions of democracy. More than 30 artists submitted their responses to our project’s core question—”What is democracy, for you?—in a bid to make these public artworks. Zachary Ochoa’s box, a totem of a femme utopia and the future of Blackness, was installed at the foot of City Hall’s massive tower. Ochoa is a recent grad of the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Aisha “EESH” Valentín’s box was positioned at the Sherman Phoenix building, a hub of black-owned businesses at the site of 2016 uprisings sparked by the police shooting of 23-year-old Sylville Smith. Her box features an optimistic narrative of political change, including a black child reaching for the stars and an essential reading list. And David Najib Kasir’s box, installed near the entrance to Three Bridges Park and the Hank Aaron Trail, beside the Urban Ecology Center in the Menomonee Valley, features a child’s praying hands and mosaic designs that were a familiar sight in the war-devastated city of Aleppo, Syria. The idea to have these boxes reimagined by artists came from Katie Avila Loughmiller, our project coordinator.

Zachary Ochoa’s work at Milwaukee City Hall

MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS

David Najib Kasir is an Arab American artist born in 1977 to immigrant parents from Iraq and Syria. His work consists of personal narratives and surrounds the act of coming to terms with the challenges of life, family, love, war, home and loss. His work transcends the basic conversation of the issues surrounding Syria and the Middle East and gives you something to emotionally connect with. He has exhibited regularly throughout the Midwest and is best known for his contemporary oil paintings.  He lives and paints in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point.

Zachary Ochoa is a recent graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, earning a BFA with a minor in art history. His work explores an object’s sacredness, the future of Blackness and a femme utopia through a multidisciplinary practice. He has performed alongside Jessica James Hutchinson at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, exhibited in Milwaukee’s “Temporary Resurfacing” and performed at the Pérez Art Museum with Anja Notanja.

Aisha “EESH” Valentín is a Milwaukee-based muralist, designer and fine artist whose creative process is deeply rooted in the hip-hop principle of using what’s available to beautify reality, and to honor that approach as both a mechanism for survival and tool for expression outside of traditional approaches. Her goal is to inspire onlookers and spark important conversations about cultural identity, joy, dreams and the spiritual evolution of individuals and the society they inhabit together.

Aisha Valentín’s work at Sherman Phoenix