These artworks make visible what is often invisible: the pain, frustration, and loss of identity that come when people are prevented from speaking out.

The words in the poem You Can’t Know My Mind echo the visuals, reminding us that silencing is not just symbolic, but a lived reality in many societies where governments restrict protest and punish dissent.

To me, these works are not just about silence, but also about resilience. Even when voices are suppressed, the act of creating art and poetry itself becomes a form of protest—a way to say what cannot be said aloud. They remind me that the right to speak, to assemble, and to resist is not only political, but deeply human.

You Can’t Know My Mind by Coleen Duff

Mouths clamped tight. Silenced. Lips roughly sewn. Voices suppressed.

No way to speak truth to power. Injustice and oppression. Protest is not just silenced in words, but by force, governments contain dissent, make assembly harder and riskier.

To protest is not a crime but a human right, the right to gather, to resist, to live without fear or discrimination.

You can’t know my mind.