Objective:
Create a compelling image that will be shared and get us into the press, thus creating additional popular pressure to get Joe Biden to sign the TRIPs waiver.
The Project:
A banner for the Care Bear brigade to hold up at the DC event in May of 2021.
TRY THIS:
Share it on social media. #FreeTheVaccine #PeoplesVaccine
Make your own!
What worked?
I find it hilarious.
Other Notes:
It will be held up by people in Care Bear costumes in front of the White House.
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An original object can be provided for exhibition
- Original files can be provided for exhibition
- The work can be reproduced on site with instructions (provided)
Links:
Reflections from Steve Lambert
What was the process/journey of creating this work?
Merith had the Care Bear idea. She asked me to help to make the banner. I asked her for a sketch, which helped speed things along. I had to do this quickly, so the outline gave me a starting point.
What skills or perspectives did the collaborators bring to this?
I’ve had to turn images into vector art to scale up before. This means smooth lines instead of more jaggedy pixelated look. Someone could do a better job at vectorizing this art, but it will look good enough from 10 feet or so and we got it done. After that I tweaked the colors to match Free the Vaccine for COVID-19’s colors. Then added the text.
What were some of the responses to this work?
Everyone who has seen it smiles.
What would be your next steps, building on this idea, if you had a million dollars and all the time and skills in the world?
Make some bears and send them to every member of congress!
If someone else were going to make/use/do something like this, what advice would you give them?
You can print this large scale for cheaper than you’d think. Or re-use elements and make a different kind of sign. Sharing is caring!
About this project
Creators:
May, 2021
United States, Poughkeepsie
3ft H by 10ft W
Download Original/High-Resolution File: care-bear-banner.pdf
Objective:
Get 1000 people in UCLA to understand and publicly support Free the Vaccine goals
The Project:
Shareable social media content that could be posted by different student organization in UCLA
TRY THIS:
Share it on social media. #FreeTheVaccine #PeoplesVaccine
Make it specific to your community.
What worked?
A general representative of UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Council reposted some of the graphics, increasing exposure and conversation about the Open COVID Pledge and Free the Vaccine.
Reflections from Johanna Angeles
What would be your next steps, building on this idea, if you had a million dollars and all the time and skills in the world?
I would print these out and plaster them all over the UCLA campus, leaving no surface untouched.
If someone else were going to make/use/do something like this, what advice would you give them?
You don’t need to be a professional nor have a fine art background to create social media graphics! I personally used Canva. It has free templates you can easily customize.
Objective:
Create language to support the larger goal of ensuring that publicly funded COVID meds are available to everyone, sustainably priced, and free at the point of delivery.
The Project:
This a slogan anyone can use in the campaign for a People’s Vaccine.
TRY THIS:
Put it on a poster.
Share it on social media. #FreeTheVaccine #PeoplesVaccine
What worked?
It’s short and sweet. The wordplay of “for good” positions accessible COVID medicine as both effective and morally necessary.
About this project
Creators:
- Free the Vaccine for COVID-19
August, 2020
,
5 words
Objective:
We’re building on Dolly Parton’s $1million donation to support COVID-19 research at Vanderbilt University. To get their attention, to educate them on the Open Covid Pledge, and to add pressure for them to sign the pledge, we chose to produce a viral music video parody of the song “Jolene” by Dolly Parton.
We now want to encourage all universities to sign the Open Covid Pledge, so we are currently discussing the “next challenge”: how to create a full-length video in a way that inspires even more people to get involved and ask universities to make a meaningful change.
The Project:
The #JoleneVaccineChallenge is an interactive project, initially intended to target Dolly Parton and Vanderbilt University. However, with the success of the project, we are now targeting universities all over the world! (Read more under “Objective” below.)
We are making a music video parody of the song “Jolene” by Dolly Parton. Do you know the song? The chorus lyrics, “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene…” have been adapted to “Vaccine, Vaccine, Vaccine, Vaccine.” Check out the video link to see how we rewrote ALL of the lyrics.
The challenge, i.e. the “interactive” element of this project, is twofold. First, we invited all members of the Free the Vaccine campaign to help us make a “trailer” for the music video. The video link here is the trailer, which consists of just the first chorus and verse to the song. At the end of the trailer, we challenge viewers to send videos of THEM lip-syncing/dancing to the song. We made a downloadable track and supplied the lyrics to the whole song for viewers.
TRY THIS:
Record your own lip sync and share it on social media. #JoleneVaccineChallenge
Perform it in your own community.
What worked?
Without Occupy Democrats having shared our video on Facebook, we would have had a MUCH harder time going viral.
Other Notes:
Thousands of people across several social media platforms watched and shared our video. We are continuing to call and email Vanderbilt and Dolly Parton representatives to remind them of our video and its growing number of likes/views.
Based on the initial response to our trailer, we’ve decided that our full-length music video should now target universities all over the world. Our trailer features members of Free the Vaccine from many different countries, emphasizing Parton’s and Vanderbilt’s global impact. In continuing this theme, for the full-length music video, we plan to have a few singers/dancers wearing not only Parton costumes or Vanderbilt t-shirts, but also, for example, t-shirts from other universities.
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A set of instructions exists on how to make this work
- Original files can be provided for exhibition
- The work can be reproduced on site with instructions (provided)
Links:
Reflections from Dannie Snyder
What were some of the responses to this work?
We have gone viral! That in itself is a huge response to our work.
As far as viewers accepting the challenge and submitting videos… So far we have only received a handful of submissions. (It’s not too late to send one yourself!) We are currently outlining our schedule for releasing the full-length music video (probably during the first week of December) as well as three “promotional” videos between now and then; three videos (at least) to help boost our views/likes on social media.
Unfortunately, Dolly Parton and Vanderbilt representatives have not been responding to our emails and calls.
What would be your next steps, building on this idea, if you had a million dollars and all the time and skills in the world?
If we had a million dollars, we could probably think of a million ideas! Our team is always bustling around “what if we…?!” Off the top of my head, we would project the final full-length music video onto Dolly Parton’s house(s) and Vanderbilt’s buildings. We discussed the idea of – when COVID cases and social distancing measures relax – a march around Nashville in Dolly Parton costumes. But, why just in Nashville!? Why stop there?! And wouldn’t it be awesome to have the video produced in every language?! We have also discussed how to get famous people to lip-sync/dance for our full-length music video.
About this project
Creators:
- Aly Bancroft
- Stacy Early
- Laura Holzman
- Dannie Snyder
July, 2020
United States, Nashville
1920×1080
Objective:
Broaden the reach of Free the Vaccine and its Columbia action and get members of the Columbia community to support it by signing the Open Covid Pledge.
The Project:
An article about Free the Vaccine, the need for its work, and specific activism focused on Columbia University in the City of New York.
STRATEGIES:
TRY THIS:
Write an essay for a local publication.
What worked?
The Columbia Political Review was very excited to publish an article on this topic and alert its readers to critical medicine access and equity issues around COVID-19. The author was likewise excited to learn about the many intricacies of the issues, write about them, and share the article with her Columbia network and her networks at large.
About this project
Creators:
July, 2020
United States, New York
2,100 words
Other Notes:
- The work can be reproduced on site with instructions (provided)
Links:
Reflections from Rachel Gita Karp
What was the process/journey of creating this work?
I knew very little about medicine access and equity issues before joining Free the Vaccine. Weekly FTV meetings gave me a strong initial understanding, but I spent weeks researching a ton more before I felt like I could be any kind of authority and write about the problems that have and will arise around COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. It was challenging to learn so much about something so new, but I’m very grateful to have gained this understanding and to continue to share it beyond this article.
What were some of the responses to this work?
I posted about the article on my social media and had lots of people from college respond in support of it. Even people I hadn’t had much interaction with since graduating (a decade ago) liked it or commented on it. As reaching the Columbia community was the goal, that felt like a huge success.
What would be your next steps, building on this idea, if you had a million dollars and all the time and skills in the world?
A few ideas: Following up with each and every person I know who went to Columbia and making them read the article and sign the Open Covid Pledge. Hosting a panel or panel series at Columbia in which some of the people quoted in the article talk about the need for open licensing around COVID research and ensuring all testing, treatment, and vaccines are available to all and free at the point of delivery. Having all of these people send the article to Columbia administration and demand they sign the Open Covid Pledge.
Description:
Image that could be for a Facebook post or a sticker.
Objective:
A pithy message that will hopefully direct people to the site or to ask what it’s about.
About this project
Creators:
- Dog Owls – Laura Holzman (others for the poster/wording?), Stacy Early
July, 2020
Image/graphic, Online/web thing, Print
United States, Memphis
Facebook Post size
What worked?
This got the likes on Facebook, however don’t know if anyone went to the FTV site to find out more.
Other Notes:
Reflections from Stacy Early
What skills or perspectives did the collaborators bring to this?
Because I am not a writer it was great to work with others who could come up with a pithy message and then I could play with it for different uses. There is a poster that contains this message with a longer explanation so this, a twitter graphic, and the poster can be used simoultaneously for greater impact.
Interpretive Statement
User Instructions
Print it and stick it!
Share it on social media. #FreeTheVaccine #PeoplesVaccine
Objective:
Create language to support the larger goal of ensuring that publicly funded COVID meds are available to everyone, sustainably priced, and free at the point of delivery.
The Project:
This a slogan anyone can use in the campaign for a People’s Vaccine.
STRATEGIES:
TRY THIS:
Put it on a poster.
Use it in your writing.
Share it on social media. #FreeTheVaccine #PeoplesVaccine
What worked?
It makes its point concisely. It’s also flexible enough to be useful in different contexts related to the campaign.
About this project
Creators:
- Free the Vaccine for COVID-19
June, 2020
,
7 words
Objective:
The objective of this image was just to create a poster that could be used to gain support for the Free the Vaccine campaign.
The Project:
This image is a rectangular poster that has several colorful people in three lines across its length. The people are a very diverse group and depict multiple genders, ethnicities, races, ages, sizes, abilities, religion, and more. In the middle of the people is a blue box with the words “Who Doesn’t Deserve a Vaccine?” in large print. In smaller print is “Let’s give everyone equal access to a life saving COVID-19 vaccine!” In the bottom right corner are the words “#Freethevaccine.”
TRY THIS:
Revise the text.
Share it on social media. #FreeTheVaccine #PeoplesVaccine
What worked?
We tried pairing other images with the question, “who doesn’t deserve a vaccine,” and this is the one that worked best. Photos got too specific – the cartoon felt like a better fit.
About this project
Creators:
- Emilie Seibert
- Laura Holzman
May, 2020
Image/graphic, Online/web thing
United States, Grand Rapids
variable
Other Notes:
This image was created using canva.com, so all art work was pulled from this site.
- Original files can be provided for exhibition
Reflections from Emilie Seibert
What would be your next steps, building on this idea, if you had a million dollars and all the time and skills in the world?
The next steps would be to further refine this image and then use it as a poster to put everywhere (billboards, subways, etc.). So people realize that EVERYONE deserves access to a vaccine.