This new artwork of Banksy fascinates me. It comprises of so many symbols and meanings. The black flag, in the picture with its anarchist A is a well known symbol for anarchy. The O around it stands for order.  Together they stand for “Anarchy is the mother of Order”.  Wikipedia informs me : “The uniform blackness of the flag is in stark contrast to the colorful flags typical of most nation-states. Additionally, as a white flag is the universal symbol for surrender to superior force, the counter-opposite black flag would logically be a symbol of defiance and opposition to surrender.”

The more I study The Punk Mom the more I see in it. A picture does say so much more than words. The image somehow summons up my own relationship to protest movements and activism right now as a middle age mother and women with an activist background. My daughter Hannah sends me rapports from different protest marches in Copenhagen which has an impressively active protest culture. The latest one was  an anti-fascist demonstration where they sang the song Till ungdomen which we sang during the peace marches in the 1980s and more recently was sung at many of the memorial gatherings after the terror attack of July 22nd in Norway last year.

I bless her involvement with loving thoughts as the mother in Banksy’s picture who packs a lunch box and makes a thermos of hot drink for the road. There are different ways to show involvement during different periods in life. To be out on the streets protesting against injustices in society is enormously important and I see myself as a more “active Punk grandma” one day who not only writes and talks about social concerns but actually joins the protest marches again – or maybe joins Banksy in making dark tunnels and grey walls into societal protests….