Drawn from Eric Garner’s last words when he was murdered in 2014 as well as what would unfortunately become part of George Floyd’s last words when he was murdered in May of 2020.
I wanted to capture the overall feeling of a horror movie [i.e. Doctor Sleep (2019), The Haunting (1963) and while not exactly a horror movie, Casper (1995)] because it very much describes this year: protagonists making dumb decisions that don’t seem plausible in the real world but occur nonetheless, the overwhelming issues that have been emphasized due to the pandemic to the point where it borders social/political satire, such as xenophobia and racism.
Since then, “I CAN’T BREATHE” has been chanted on a regular basis during protests, and during such, protestors will lay down or take a knee for the amount of time these Black men were asphyxiated. Many people, especially Black Americans are fed up at the frequency in which they experience police brutality, are given harsh sentences for non-violent offenses compared to everyone else and are constantly being silenced when they try to express their grievances.
My hope is for fellow AAPI look inward, acknowledge anti-Black biases within our own communities and help create positive changes within our lifetime. I have added the Tagalog translation "Hindi Ako Makahinga," to show that we are not as different as we think we are, and as people, we never lose anything in trying to help others. As Mary Frances Berry has said "History teaches us to resist...(Politicians) want you to vote for them, get them elected, then get them re-elected; Those are the...things they want. But the thing you have to want, is to make them do what will give you justice and equality in this country. They won’t do that, unless you make them do it, and that’s where protest is involved.”
The major frames were broken down into a story board, the motion of the Tagalog translation disappearing was reversed from when it reappeared, applied through stop-motion then converted into a gif. (79 frames at 9fps)