I wrote “Happiness is” in my search bar and the results were a flood of office break room poster-worthy quotes about life, joy, and purpose. I picked the first 50 that I found and made a spreadsheet. For each entry, I inserted “anarchy” or “anarchist” in place of the words “happiness” or “happy”. I turned each phrase into absurdity with a few accidental truths to defang the sensationalist and contrived image of anarchism.

Laws Ain’t Real is the sister project to Happiness Is. Laws that have been passed that deny human rights have no authority other than the authority we consent to give it. Stating this truth does not neglect the harmful consequences of going against the state, rather it is meant to encourage the questioning of what power we give the carceral state in our daily lives. The criminalization of populations is nothing new in this country. Recent waves of anti-trans and anti-Black laws provide opportunities to criticize the whole system rather than fighting in silos.

I hope to spark a conversation about the overlapping of these multiple landscapes by combining these two projects with the backdrops of Southern images.