ANGELA CONANT

Opposite Day began shortly after election day, 2016, to counter-balance threats to information platforms. This publication includes writings found on social media: an efficient and perverted tool that is under surveillance, rife with false reporting, while also essential for individual expression and for calls to political resistance. As an annual publication, Opposite Day will serve as a record of its time, and is founded on the idea that archived analyses of the present will inform future decisions, like the ones that lead to the 2016 presidential election.

O.D. includes essays and articles by artists, writers, and the creative community, in reaction to the current US administration. Alongside long-form articles are printed social media posts that reflect the oppositional tone of their moment. Elevating a community's public posts to print, O.D. crystalizes thoughts which dearly need a trustworthy place to land.

On December 18th, 2016,  I moderated an event which gathered artists to share reactions and ideas for action in resistance to the new administration. The event began with a panel discussion between three artists, Sunita Prasad, Jen Liu and Autumn Knight, who were invited because their practices each contain political subject matter, if not urgency. After the election, this urgency is elevated as more people (namely white liberal Americans) realize that no one is exempt from the responsibility to act against the problems that caused this election’s results. The impetus behind this discussion was to model after those who already work within the context of these problems.