Alisha B. Wormsley’s four-part panel for Activist Print is inspired by John Carpenter’s 1988 science fiction film They Live.
Activist Print: Alisha B. Wormsley: We Live
January 1 – June 18, 2017
In Carpenter’s film, a race of aliens disguised as humans take over the planet. Using mass media and normalization tactics, the aliens manipulate, dominate, and police the human race. An underground resistance creates glasses that enable humans to see who the aliens are, ultimately leading to the destruction of their system of mind control. In We Live, Wormsley re-imagines this fictional story for our current political moment: “In this world the glasses are used to promote fear and control. The children can see beyond this—they can use other forms of connection and centered thinking to change course. Resistance grows through a change in perception. A shift is happening.” Wormsley believes that there is something innate in the human spirit that drives us to protect this planet and its inhabitants.
Alisha B. Wormsley is a collaborative and community-oriented interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Wormsley has been honored with a number of awards and grants to support her programs: afronaut(a) experimental film series; Homewood Artist Residency (recently received the mayor’s public art award); art: the Children of NAN video art series; There Are Black People in the Future body of work; and her collaborative works with performance artist Lisa Harris. Her work has been shown in the 2014 Carnegie International and the HTMLLES festival in Montreal as a part of the Montreal Biennial 2014. Wormsley currently teaches electronic media at Carnegie Mellon University.
Alisha Wormsley, We Live, 2016
“In this world the glasses are used to promote fear and control. The children can see beyond this—they can use other forms of connection and centered thinking to change course. Resistance grows through a change in perception. A shift is happening.”
About Activist Print
Activist Print is a collaboration between The Warhol, BOOM Concepts (a creative hub for artists to incubate ideas), and the North Side printmaking studio Artists Image Resource (AIR). Activist Print is inspired by the history of artists using silkscreen and print-based media to raise awareness of contemporary issues and inspire change.