Like in London, stickers of various kinds are ubiquitous in New York (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
A few months ago, I visited New York on an undergraduate field trip. As I explored the city, I took pictures of protest stickers as I do in London. This post is about some of the stickers that I saw. At first I thought that explicitly political stickers were less common in New York than London, as it took me quite a while to find any. However I discovered that in some areas, such as the East Village in Manhattan, protest stickers are just as common as in London.
I spotted this sticker in several locations around the city. It is advertising a demonstration that was due to take place several weeks after I was in New York. The treatment of the city’s citizens, especially black citizens, by police has resurfaced as a contentious issue in recent months (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Some issues that are common subjects of protest stickers in London also occur in New York, like this one advocating a boycott of Israeli produced goods (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Other issues are unique to the US, such as this sticker declaring that 9/11 was the result of a conspiracy. It looks as if it has been scratched with a key or something similar in an attempt to obscure the image, suggesting the controversy of this kind of opinion (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This Occupy sticker plays on the iconic posters from Obama’s campaign during the last election, but replaces the image of Obama with that of a protester in a V for Vendetta mask (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker also refers to Obama. I saw sever different issues of ‘The Shadow’ whilst in New York (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Anti-fascism was not such a common topic of protest stickers in New York as London, but it is there (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker was produced by an organisation called Truth Move, which also produced the anti-fascist sticker above. Anti-fascism and environmental issues are not usually tackled by the same social movement groups; Truth Move is an organisation that argues that equality and democracy come from equal access to knowledge and facts (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is handmade, it looks as if a postage label has been painted over (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
I know I am cheating a little bit with this one, it is in the collection in the Interference Archive rather than on the streets. But I liked it too much to leave out! (Photo: Hannah Awcock)
I like the design of this sticker, and it’s topic, mental health, is also unusual (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker, advertising a climate march, could also be found in Spanish, a language with is widely spoken in America and New York (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
I love the politeness of this anti-racist sticker in the East Village (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Although I do not agree with the sentiment of this sticker, I can’t help but admire it’s wit (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
University Teacher in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh. Interested in the cultural, historical, and political geographies of resistance.
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