The revolution will be distributed.
On Thursday February 25th, elusive artist Jim Joe released artwork supporting Bernie Sanders and his presidential campaign, a collaboration with photographer Jamie-James Medina. The poster features a portrait Medina took of Senator Sanders on the campaign trail in Iowa, inscribed with the phrase 'human being’ in JIM JOE’s signature handwriting. JIM JOE is a New York-based artist, originally from Montreal, with a cult following in the world of art, fashion and music. He has collaborated with artists such as Kanye West and Drake, designing the cover for Drake’s album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. The artwork is being made available as a free download via the website human-being.co, with full-res print files available via BitTorrent Bundle.
Medina, a British citizen, was asked to profile Senator Sanders during the Iowa caucus for The Guardian, spending a week on the campaign trail. It was here, while photographing the audience during a campaign stop at a local high school, that he started to image the eventual outcome. “You’re hearing the same speech several times a day from every candidate, but I had a moment where I thought that to not support Senator Sanders and his campaign during this election is to give up on these kids ever having a President that does not represent establishment politics. I quickly made a decision that I’m going to take a photograph of the Senator and make him look presidential. That’s the image I sent to JIM JOE and he very quickly sent me back the final design. Together, we felt that to be able to describe a politician as a ‘human being’, and to believe it, was almost revolutionary.”
