Josh MacPhee

From the streets of Pittsburgh to the basements of Portland, Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative spreads radical political activism via a range of media, including printmaking, large-scale sculptural installations, and street graffiti. Initially founded in 1998 by designer, artist, activist and archivist Josh MacPhee as an online distributor for his graphic works, Justseeds now includes 26 artists from across North America. Working with likeminded grassroots organizations that advocate for similar social change, the cooperative harnesses the creative work of individuals to inspire collective action. Campaigns such as Chemicals Will Make Our Lives Better highlight MacPhee’s trademark print style, combining eye-catching images and vibrant colors with textual declarations of protest. In addition to his work with Justseeds, MacPhee is a member of the Occuprint collective and a co-founder of the Interference Archive, an online archive that collects socially engaged artistic works. He is the author of Stencil Pirates: A Global Study of the Street Stencil, co-author of Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now, and co-editor of Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture. His work as a curator includes Paper Politics, which has been on tour since 2004, and the 2001 campaign The Department of Space and Land Reclamation with Creative Time’s Chief Curator Nato Thompson. MacPhee lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.