Graduate student workers at the University of California were on strike when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the state. The picket line the strikers held for over a month at the entrance to the university became unsafe and ineffective as all in-person campus operations were halted. Yet, we decided to continue the strike: remote teaching translated into remote striking; the picket line went digital; and disruptions became mediated.

 

However, the conditions of the pandemic and the global uprising for racial justice in Summer 2020 transformed the strike, its organizing methods, and its goals. The movement that began as a labor struggle became increasingly animated by police abolition. As the themes we organized around and the conditions of our organizing became more complex, the media we produced became more experimental. Its function went beyond its organizing utility and ventured into the realm of the arts.

 

Yulia Gilich is a scholar, media artist, and community organizer. They are a PhD candidate in the department of Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz. Their work is primarily concerned with the use of settler colonization in larger imperial projects, particularly those of the United States and Israel.