COME TO YOUR CENSUS Campaign Includes Creativity Explored Artists
Andrew Li's artwork featured on a COME TO YOUR CENSUS campaign banner.
Creativity Explored artists Antonio Benjamin and Andrew Li are part of COME TO YOUR CENSUS, an important arts-driven public media campaign that positions artists as catalysts to humanize the issues around the 2020 Census.
Led by Art+Action, COME TO YOUR CENSUS is a creative call to action that speaks to, and motivates, all San Franciscans to participate in the 2020 Census to receive their fair share of resources and political representation. Although the movement is starting locally, the goal is to set off a national spark.
Harnessing the power of both internationally-renowned and as-yet-unknown artists who represent a myriad of San Francisco’s communities and neighborhoods, COME TO YOUR CENSUS has a public presence on kiosks, transit shelters, billboards, and banners in different neighborhoods across the city. Presented in the four official languages of San Francisco: English, Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog, the campaign offers information about the impact of the 2020 Census on all our lives for the next ten years.
Antonio Benjamin and Andrew Li's works can be found on all the campaign’s public media channels as well as on banners at the San Francisco Public Library.
Be on the lookout for several examples of these public artworks in your neighborhood. And, remember to participate in the Census this April! You're also invited to join the movement and access the COME TO YOUR CENSUS Toolkits and Resources here.
About Art+Action
San Francisco’s first coalition for civic participation, Art+Action spans art, creative, community, business, technology, philanthropy, activist, and government sectors. Art+Action is in partnership with trusted institutions and messengers, including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), their Headquarters and a Lead Partner, and ignited by support from San Francisco’s Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs (OCEIA).
The Artists
Other Bay Area artists featured in the COME TO YOUR CENSUS include Marcela Pardo Ariza, Miguel Arzabe, Emory Douglas, Hung Liu, George McCalman, Masako Miki, Joel Daniel Philips, Clare Rojas, and Stephanie Syjuco.
The Creative
This arts-driven campaign, established through a process of interviews and collaborations with key community-based organizations, reflects an ideology of equity and plurality. The creative platform, COME TO YOUR CENSUS was developed under the guidance of Art+Action Director of Messaging + Creative, Amy Schoening, with SF-based creative syndicate Partners in Crime and Amy Finn of Agency by Others.
The campaign typography and artwork selection was brought to life by MCCALMAN.CO design studio, led by San Francisco artist George McCalman, who also is one of the campaign’s participating artists. The first iteration of the campaign, in the four official languages of San Francisco: English, Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog, was unveiled on the JCDecaux kiosks along San Francisco’s Market Street corridor, courtesy of San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), for Martin Luther King Jr. Week. Art+Action’s online open-source toolkit offers versions of select posters re-imagined by Robert Saywitz. Forthcoming iterations of the campaign creative will harness the talents of Stoller Design Group.
