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We feel pretty lucky here at Northland global headquarters. With all the corruption, war, and plain old robbery going in, we get to hear from the people who are doing something about it. We get to talk with the teachers who are defending their right to a decent profession; the students rejecting sweat shop economics on their campuses; the veterans refusing to let young people get bamboozled into signing away their futures for the Halliburtons of the world. We get to witness the formation of coalitions between environmental and labor groups to promote safe energy, sustainable jobs, and war-free economics. We get to support organizations of community members and workers who refuse to be divided along racial lines. We get to help come up with creative ways to explain the challenging issues of our time with activists who are committed to seeing a better future for our children.
The posters, buttons, bumper stickers, and eveything else we create are about hope. Hope is what makes change possible; change is what makes hope possible. You can count on us to find the words and images that will demonstrate that even the toughtest challenges can be faced. Our task as artists, organizers, and educators is not to pretend that there is hope but to find it and make it visible. We gather the histories, quotes, songs, and images and work them and mold them until we have something that we think you can use. We study, too. Many of the pieces we produce require research to make sure that the images are accurate and that the quotes are really by Mark Twain. (No, Chief Seattle didn’t say half the things that people claim but, yes, Mother Jones really did come up with all those sound bites.)
Our online catalog is to enjoy, give away, or put to work. Our site also features some fun free downloads!
There’s no way we could produce the kind of work that we do — work that is used every day to power campaigns, challenge students, and fuel kitchen conversations — if we were just sitting here in isolation. What keeps us going is the daily contact we have with the brave souls in the front lines of social and political change. Whether you are in a campaign to stop a Walmart or defend a pension plan, block military recruiters or convince your aunt that gay marriage isn’t the main threat to her standard of living, no struggle is too large or too small to take up. No battle is too big or too small to tell us about, either. We love to hear from you.
In solidarity,
-The Northland Collective
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