A typographic artwork where the two inner words 'men' and 'power' flash on and off consecutively but the full word 'empowerment' never lights up. Speaking in 1971 at the National Women’s Political Caucus in Washington pioneering nonviolent activists for women’s and civil rights, Fannie Lou Hamer declared; “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free”. Adopting Hamer’s words as the title, this work aims to address the persistence of white supremacy and patriarchal oppression and calls attention to the progress still to be made in the fight for equality. The shifting words show the dynamic aspect at play in how power is formed, never just one element, it is made possible through other words and by the context in which it is used and abused.

Lauren McLaughlin is a multidisciplinary artist whose focus is rooted in a desire to represent the undervalued and overlooked experiences of mothering, caregiving, and gendered work through a feminist lens.