Solidarity Film

'Solidarity: First Your Liberation And Then Mine' was produced for Inside Southwest Detroit, co-directed by Karen Cardenas and Erik Paul Howard, and centers 40 days of solidarity and movement building in Detroit following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department amid national uprisings in support of #BlackLivesMatter and the introduction of the Breathe Act led by Movement for Black Lives' policy agenda.

Breonna Taylor, Rekia Boyd, and Aiyana Jones are lifted up in voice and local media clips alongside a pledge that this work will continue until "we free us" in our quest for liberation rather than waiting on an incapable system to come to terms with and correct itself.

The short film focuses on people and community coming together through protest, performance, relationship, marching, education, and art in photographs to the beat of intersectional solidarity building at the Solidarity Action + Freedom March, "A people's movement rooted in Black + Indigenous leadership" on Woodward on July 4th, 2020. Original soundscapes from the march are combined with visuals alternating between video of the July 4th march on Woodward and 75+ photographs by the team's photographers Rosa Maria Zamarron, Rachel Elise Thomas, and Erik Paul Howard—edited and sequenced by Nina Robinson—from the past 40 days.

Karen Cardenas is an artist in residence with Inside Southwest Detroit’s Porch on TAP (PoTAP) residency program. PoTAP programs places and spaces in community as portals for neighbors, youth, and partners to access the wider world of art.