Whether it’s sparking playground gossip or confronting oppressive and murderous institutions, the middle finger is a built-in feature of resistance and self-defense. Since 1995, artist Ai Weiwei has flipped the bird to myriad global landmarks steeped in oppression, censorship, and over-control to remind people to challenge the status quo and represent their own personal values.
Now, you can take Ai’s middle finger virtually anywhere in the world (or at least anywhere on Google Maps) thanks to a new collaboration between the artist and online art platform Avant Arte. The project, Majoruses the recognizable image of Ai’s hand overlaid on Google Maps street views so users everywhere can wield the power to reinsert individuality wherever they want.
“We often forget that we have a middle finger,” Ai said of this project and his long Perspective study series of photographs. “Or even if we know we have a middle finger, we abuse it. I think it’s good to remember that this part of your body can point to something – an institution, or someone that looks like a power – to let them know, and let you know, that you exist.
After my little moment of gliding past my high school and my ex’s house on Google Maps equipped with Weiwei’s left hand middle finger, I had to zoom out beyond my own perspective and consider what bastions of oppression on a large scale needed the one-finger salute. So without further ado, here are five places worth returning the bird to:
After President Joe Biden Project Willow approval, toppling the White House has been done to death and is quite frankly a low hanging fruit, so I send my middle finger to ConocoPhillips Alaska subsidiary headquarters in Anchorage, Alaska. For those not in the know, Project Willow is a huge oil drilling venture that would be developed and executed over the next few decades in the National Petroleum Reserve above the Arctic Circle in northern Alaska. While Alaskans on both sides hailed Biden’s endorsement and look forward to an enriched economy and new job opportunities, climate activists from the bottom 48 have decried the decision as directly in conflict with the Biden-Harris administration’s stance on climate change and energy supply. green energy and are concerned about the ramifications on Alaskan wildlife.
The British Museum in London – loved by many, reviled by even more. The museum has a lot going for it in terms of bad press and controversy. Currently, the museum’s refusal to repatriate the Parthenon marbles to Greece, the mute non-responses regarding the potential renewal of the five-year sponsorship deal with oil giant BP amid “Net Zero Carbon” plan, and a brief look at their collection of looted artifacts guarantee enough middle fingers to wrap around the circumference of the sun.
Walgreens headquarters gets collective middle finger from wombs across America after the pharmacy bowed to the whims of the red state legislature by withdrawing the first of two drugs used in a medical abortion, mifepristone, from its locations in 20 states where abortion restrictions are encroaching despite the drug still being legal in several of them. Unfortunately for us in the tri-state area, Walgreens is the parent company of Duane Reade, and both are owned by British pharmacy giant Boots. Hundreds of Americans across the country have backed out of Walgreens for an act of cowardice, saying they will boycott Walgreens and Duane Reade in the future. Definitely adds a bit of walking to anything talking…
Unsurprisingly, the man of the hour, Ron DeSantis, gets a big middle finger from us. Google Maps actually took me to the Florida Capitol building and presented me with this truly awful but surprisingly on-brand chair in a hallway that I chose to vent my frustrations in. Just this week, DeSantis announced that he was reviewing revoke liquor license from a Hyatt Regency hotel in Miami for hosting sexually explicit performances with children in attendance last Christmas. The live performance in question? A drag show, no surprise. It’s just another brick in the wall that DeSantis has built to prevent any “revival” from indoctrinating Florida children. Desantis is also known for his crackdown on the infusion of critical theory of race and diversity, equity and inclusion into Florida school curricula, forcing teachers and librarians to pull shelves from thousands of now-banned books that suggest even a modicum of diversion from the white heteronormative Status Quo.
The Stone Mountain Monument off Robert E. Lee Blvd in Stone Mountain, Georgia is the last to get our middle finger, but certainly not the least. Completed in 1972, the 90-foot sculpture depicts Confederate Generals Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis riding a horse. In a recent attempt to tear down monuments that celebrate oppression and genocide across the country, Stone Mountain stands out for its marked permanence as the nation’s (and the world’s) tallest Confederate monument. The sculpture will always be associated with the genocide of the indigenous populations of the region and the place of revival of the Georgian branch of the KKK.
We also tried out a few New York-based museums for fun, and had a good laugh when we typed in “MoMA” and the maps feature showed us the famous steps leading to the Metropolitan Museum instead. Maybe he knows something we don’t?
Good turnaround!
