Walking through Williamsburg, you might just come across that sign you’ve been waiting for to throw dog shit at a Tesla Cybertruck.
Brooklyn-based artist Fola Fia, who declined to provide their real name to Hyperallergic for fear of doxxing, asks New Yorkers to place dog poop bags in and around Cybertrucks in posters that resemble classic green-and-white street signs placed near Williamsburg’s Bedford Avenue L train subway station.
“Someone who has $100,000 to spend on a truck also can afford to carefully consider the ethical ramifications of giving that much money to a company owned and run by Elon Musk,” Fola Fia told Hyperallergic in a phone interview.
While the artist has seen pedestrians laugh at their satirical Cybertruck street signs, Fola Fia’s other artworks assume a more urgent tone, including references to the sexual harassment allegations against New York City mayoral candidate and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, and the New York City Police Department’s crackdown on student protesters at Columbia University.
“We let our students get beaten and deported,” reads one poster mimicking a Columbia University ad. “#1 in the world for administrator spinelessness.”
Fola Fia told Hyperallergic that the pop-up series, which they first posted on Instagram last week, was the first time they had released their work on a large scale to the public. The artist said that they brainstormed ideas for months before wheatpasting their first design, a mock campaign ad for Cuomo, who announced this month that he would be running for mayor after resigning as governor in 2021 amid multiple misconduct accusations.
“I heard someone say that burnout is energy that has nowhere to go,” Fola Fia said. “You can feel really burned out, because what are we supposed to do? But I think it’s my way of getting that energy out so I don’t burn out.”
Inspired by British street artist Darren Cullen, Fola Fia said they want to spur other people to take action through their work. The artist said they chose to place their work near the Bedford L subway station because it is a highly transited area.
“I looked into the busiest subway stations and then cross-referenced them with a map of the busiest pedestrian corridors in Brooklyn,” Fola Fia said.
The artist began their campaign with a design highlighting the allegations against Cuomo in a red, white, and blue wheatpasted poster featuring a portrait of the disgraced former governor. Layered over the image, Fola Fia wrote the words, “Eleven women isn’t enough, I need to grope more!”
“That one felt like a good start,” Fola Fia told Hyperallergic. “I think he would be a terrible mayor, so that felt urgent, just to start getting a counter-narrative out to whatever he is pretending to be in this campaign.” Cuomo made headlines this month for leading Eric Adams in early mayoral polls.
Following the arrest of Khalil, a legal permanent resident who served as a negotiator in Columbia University’s encampment protests last spring, Fola Fia pasted a poster modeled after a multi-colored television interruption screen with the words “FREE MAHMOUD.” The work features QR codes linking to action items including petitions for Khalil’s release.
“This is a test,” the poster reads. “They are conducting a test of the guardians of our democracy. If we fail this test, we are fucked. Don’t let them get away with it. Dissent is free speech.”
