Usually like afterwards we feel a lot better, but right now the drive down is not comfortable at all.
I grew up in Washington, D.C., and our family business was running a cemetery.
My job was like to operate a weed whacker and I would go around the graves.
I would play math like how how old were the people where they passed.
And I started to get a lot of young people.
I realized that people were dying in an unjust system.
And I think that really prepared prepared me personally for what we're up against now.
The cemetery has come up more and more recently in my life.
I didn't really kind of think about how much it affected me.
I didn't go into the family business. In my early twenties, I was working as a freelance journalist.
I had had this press credential.
And I felt very like this level of confidence like I could go and shoot,
and I'd be able to film and then walk away if things got a little hairy.
The police had already surrounded everybody,
and so everyone's already pinned in and then a window got broken.
All these arrests started happening, and I got arrested with other journalists.
And I just remember that the officer's been pretty rough, and he kept been hitting me against the bus.
And he goes, "Stop resisting." I'm not trying to resist.
I'm not trying to fall on the ground, but I'm not trying to resist.
I definitely stepped away from that experience going,
"Okay, this is the second time I've been arrested, both times are with the camera."
I want to keep working on news and media, but at the same time, I can't just be a spectator.
I also need to participate.
A little under a year later after being arrested, we organized a large anti-war concert, and we did a big projection at it.
We are going live.
This projection is with a reproductive rights group protesting Trump's global gag rule.
Aid groups can't even mention the word abortion if they want U.S. funding.
It's ridiculous, preventing women from making health decisions.
When we actually do the projection we have a few people who are helping us out with the
physicality of the projectors and moving them around
we have filmmakers and photographers who are doing their job,
and then we have people who interact with the public and security.
It's mainly hotel security
that has a problem and seemingly all the men in suits pointing their cameras in our faces.
But cops are totally fine with it. They're like, "We're just here to make sure that you're good."
Oh my God, we did that. That's hilarious.
Our actual medium is light and illumination,
so it's kind of important that we kind of follow through with that with what we actually create.
You know, taking things that are negative and putting them to light.
We're up against something really big.
We're up against people who don't want to have conversations,
who are, frankly, undemocratic.
Some of the most dangerous things about a Trump administration, we won't see until way way after he's left.
You know a lot of this stuff we're doing with projections, I look at it as
We're creating mile markers.
...And then block it yeah, cool.
We are out of here, thank you all very much.
I'm optimistic for humanity,
I'm very on guard for what's happening with the Trump administration and with people who support him.
Was that the most police presence you've ever had?
--Yeah, I think so.
--Definitely.
Democracy is kind of a process. It's not like, it's not a fact.