Minnesota has recently been a spot of escalating ICE activity, as well as escalating community resistance. Minneapolis screen printer Art Price is helping foster solidarity in an interesting way- by opening their cooperative screen printing studio to the community. How does it work? People bring in their own shirts or other fabric items, and Price’s studio has a variety of prepared screens, burned with anti-ICE imagery, that can be printed on them for free.
‘I didn’t have a lot of shirts, but I had a lot of equipment and ink, and I was very very angry.’
How Did Minneapolitans Respond?
Price says that the community response has been remarkable. Folks have been donating a little bit of everything – including money, food, time, and labor. Someone brought in cookies that had been aptly sprayed with a ‘f*ck ICE’ stencil. Community members have brought in whistles (for alerting others of ICE presence) and red cards (with know-your-rights information in a variety of languages) to distribute. With the help of others, they’ve even been able to arrange shirt deliveries for community members who don’t feel safe traveling.
‘I’ve had people show up in ways that I’ve never experienced before in my life. I’ve felt more in community in the past week than I have in the last 5 years.’
Price’s Minneapolis print shop is a testament to the idea that resistance happens in a multitude of ways. What began as anti-ICE imagery printed on shirts has evolved to include community space, food share, and resource distribution. Price closes their video by urging others to get involved in any way that they can. Don’t know where you fit in? They say that reaching out to others who are already doing ‘the thing’ is always a good place to start.
‘Just because you haven’t done anything before, doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. As Jake the dog once said, “being really bad at something is the first step to being kind of good at something.”‘
