Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh on the Power of Street Art as Protest

Musician Nina Simone once said “an artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” We’re now seeing a reflection of our times — the fight against racism and inequality — in works of art on city streets and storefronts across California, as artists paint murals or graffiti remembering George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and declaring “Black Lives Matter.” Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh knows the power street art can have in bolstering a social movement. Her international street art campaign “Stop Telling Women to Smile,” now a book of the same name, reflected her own experiences with street harassment and became a way to empower other women. We’ll talk to Fazlalizadeh about her work, which includes recent murals supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, and the role of street art in protests.