Art by Eli Childers. Image courtesy of Eli Childers

The Human Rights Campaign of Mississippi, in collaboration with the Greater Jackson Arts Council, Visit Jackson and local artists, is sending a message: voting matters.

In a series of temporary murals to be placed around the city, creators Eli Childers, Azha Sanders, Sabrina Howard, Margaret Sullivan, Shon Perryman and Chris Mitchell are showcasing a non-partisan message encouraging this important civic responsibility under the hashtag #artofvoting.

Each individual mural, painted on 4′ x 8′ sheets of plywood, is designed in the artists’ individual style and created with their own voice of change.

Childers is spearheading the project.

“We put this public project together in a matter of just a few weeks with the expressed intent to visually advocate the need to vote,” he said on social media. “I really think as artists we grasp the concept of change and the need to change more than ever. It’s in our soul.”

Childers’s piece will be placed at Methodist Rehabilitation Center, Sanders’s will be at Jackson State University and Sullivan’s will be displayed at the Mississippi Arts Center on Pascagoula Street. Perryman’s art will be near Tougaloo College and Mitchell’s will be at The Jackson Medical Mall. Sabrina Howard’s piece will travel to Alcorn State University.

“Above all else, I’m just thankful to see not only a call for greater futures but my heart flows over with how we put on for Mississippi, our city and the country with our art,” Childers said. “It’s everything I believe in and it’s everything I feel inside.”

This is not the first collaborative project Childers has spearheaded: in August, the artist organized a protest mural with individually painted pieces popping up around the city.

Other murals:

Art by Azha Sanders. Image courtesy of Eli Childers
Art by Margaret Sullivan. Image courtesy of Eli Childers
Art by Shon Perryman. Image courtesy of Eli Childers
Art by Chris Mitchell. Image courtesy of Eli Childers
Art by Sabrina Howard. Image courtesy of Eli Childers