Sketching a Way Out: What It Means to Be the Revolution in a Hardening World

Last week, Size Yange traveled to join activists, researchers, and academicians from across the globe for the Abortion and Reproductive Justice Conference (ARJC). We stepped into the space both as individual artists and collectively as Size Yange, carrying an abstract incredibly close to our hearts: "Sketching a Way Out: How Artivism Softens the Harshest Borders."

ARJC is designed as an inclusive, feminist space where shared learning meets strategy. Going into a conference explicitly grounded in the radical theme "We Are the Revolution," we expected to have to make the case for art. We assumed we would have to prove—as creative advocates so often do—that artivism is not just decorative, but a critical tool for bodily autonomy and reproductive justice. Instead, we found a beautiful surprise: Artivism was already being woven into the very fabric of the conference.

We didn’t just bring words and abstracts to ARJC; we brought our physical work. Size Yange had the incredible opportunity to showcase our paintings as part of a Gallery Walk hosted by Ipas. Seeing our paintings hanging in that space was a powerful moment. In a venue filled with dense academic data, legal strategies, and policy briefs, the gallery walk provided a visual anchor. It forced people to pause, feel, and confront the human realities behind the statistics. It proved exactly what our abstract argued: art softens the harsh, rigid borders of traditional advocacy and builds a direct gateway to empathy and shared understanding.

To understand what "the revolution" means today, we have to look directly at the hostile socio-political climates we are navigating. We are operating under the heavy weight of growing anti-rights movements that aggressively target abortion access, bodily sovereignty, and gender justice. The conversations at ARJC didn't shy away from these daunting realities. The agenda forced us to grapple with how the revolution must look in practice—from tracking the implementation and gaps of the Maputo Protocol across the continent, to centering deep, necessary panels on disability inclusion. By grounding these heavy discussions alongside visual storytelling, the conference reminded everyone in attendance that reproductive justice isn't a static policy goal; it is a living, breathing practice of care, inclusion, and creative resistance.

Shifting from Silos to Global Solidarity

Beyond the panels and the exhibition, the true heartbeat of the week was the overwhelming sense of cross-border community. As a creative initiative, it is easy to sometimes feel like you are working in an isolated silo. But ARJC shattered that isolation. The networking was a powerful reminder of the global feminist ecosystem. We met, strategized, and shared space with like-minded change-makers from entirely different corners of the world, learning exactly how others are defending reproductive freedoms in their own countries.

There was also an incredible wealth of rigorous research on display. Seeing the sheer volume of documented lived experiences and data was deeply grounding. For Size Yange, it provided fresh insights into how we can continue to archive community narratives—ensuring our visual and digital media projects remain firmly backed by intersectional, evidence-based truth.

We left the conference with full notebooks, inspired hearts, and a clear takeaway: When the world builds walls around our bodies and our rights, artivists must keep sketching the ways through, over, and around them.

Thank you to Ipas, Akina Mama for providing a platform for our visual voice, and to everyone at ARJC who listened to our abstract, interacted with our paintings, and reminded us of what is possible when academia and activism collide beautifully.

The revolution is inclusive, it is rigorously researched, and it is undeniably creative. Size Yange is ready for the next chapter.