Paste-up, 1200 cm x 300 cm, Rome, Italy 2020
Photos: Valentino Bonacquisti

George Floyd was killed on 25 May 2020 in Minneapolis, United States, after a police officer knelt on his neck for over nine minutes while he was handcuffed and repeatedly saying that he could not breathe. His death became a global catalyst for protests against systemic racism and police violence, and a collective call for justice that resonated across continents.

This artwork was created in solidarity with peaceful anti-racism protests around the world, in memory of George Floyd and all victims of racism and racial injustice.

Installed as a 12-meter-wide by 3-meter-high poster in the public space, the work presents a close, magnified view of a Black person’s eyes. Framed tightly within the composition, only the eyes and part of the eyebrows are visible — contained within the limits of the image, as if the viewer is meeting a gaze that cannot fully expand outward.

The eyes hold a sense of exhaustion and suffocation, yet also presence — a quiet insistence on being seen. Above them, the words “We can’t breathe” stretch across the surface in a bold, constructed typography, forming a visual and emotional tension with the image beneath.

The typeface was designed to carry a feeling of pressure and restriction, suggesting the experience of being unheard and constrained, while keeping the focus on the message itself rather than its interpretation. Image and text together create a direct confrontation: a gaze that struggles for air, and a sentence that refuses silence.

Rather than illustrating a single event, the work reflects a broader reality of systemic violence and racial injustice. It stands as an act of remembrance and solidarity — a public intervention that transforms space into witness, and visibility into a demand to be heard.