Rain or Shine

Hi Dan,

My name is Sid. I'm not an artist, I'm a graphic designer and unfortunately I used AI to create the image and then manipulated it via Photoshop.

I'm the representative on the Coalition from the Green Party of Sacramento. I do a lot of their graphic design as well as provide PA support system for live events such as protests and demonstrations.

I wish I was an artist but I'm not. I'm just a radical trying to make a revolution and trying to get comrades inspired. I've received a lot of criticism and will no longer be using AI to generate.

- Sid Akbar

Hi Sid,

Thanks for writing. You have given me something to think about. Your poster is the first time we at PPPA have had to consider AI. There may be other posters/artists who used AI but we are not aware of them and I am not sure we care. 

For us, creating a poster is a defining act of solidarity with Palestine. HOW it was created is perhaps less important than that it was created and perhaps served to motivate others to action or to record an important act in Palestine's history. Over the years Palestinians have created images for posters on toilet paper while in Israeli prison, created sculptures out of mud, and used many other non-traditional methods and materials. Today artists in solidarity with Palestine bust into outdoor commercial advertising kiosks and insert Palestine solidarity posters and projected them onto buildings my point being that the term "Palestine poster" is being altered, expanded, revised all the time and to say, as you say some people have said, that AI is not legitimate, may turn out to be inaccurate. 

How do you want to proceed? Leave the poster uncredited or ... what? PPPA is artist-centered so artists always make the call as to how their work is credited. 

Standing With Gaza,

Dan Walsh/PPPA