Mark, you’ve become known as an activist in the art scene. Has this always been the focus of your work?
Before I was making political art, I was doing work that was purely abstract. When Ferguson happened, it was a watershed moment for me. I lived through the murders of Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant, and had been unable to respond artistically. I remember my mom calling me when the Trayvon Martin verdict
came out. Maybe call it naive, but
I was really shocked. After Michael Brown was murdered, Eric Garner was next and then it was like one every two months for a year. I was like, “I have to get this out because I'm just so full of emotion behind what I'm seeing.”
One man’s catharsis is another man’s fighting words. Were you worried about alienating people that didn’t agree with your messages or that weren’t ready to talk about these issues?
When I started doing these pieces, I thought people were gonna think I’d lost my mind. The ideas that came to me were uncomfortable for me and I knew that if I'm gonna do this kind of work I have to be open and able to have a discussion with people about what it means. If someone is like, “I don't understand this, or this makes me uncomfortable.” I’m like, “Guess what? It makes me comfortable too.” My early images were very much focused on Black bodies in vulnerable positions surrounded by police. I began to realize this work wasn't necessarily going to help achieve the goal I was hoping for. Many White people will just look away because it's too uncomfortable. I realized that the people that needed to hear it and understand it are White people. I mean a lot of the issues around police violence, violence against Black bodies that is state sponsored, is not our problem, it's not something that we created.
White America needs its consciousness raised, to wake up and realize what's going on in the system that we’re all living in. If you're not aware and not trying to change these things, then you're complicit in it. I'm not saying you're right there pulling the trigger, but you're complicit in what's happening. Silence is violence, essentially, right? So, my work had to change from being focused on what was happening to African American and Latino people and more about White people and putting them in this situation where they're observing something and feel discomfort.