Imagine that you are driving down a highway when you spot a thought-provoking billboard showing an extreme close-up image of the upper part of a human face. All you can see are the person’s eyes and the inscription, “Do you see me for who I am or what you think I am?”

This is just one of many artists’ billboards currently on display at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, on view through March 22.

Between 2016-2024, For Freedoms has worked with 350 artists to make over 550 billboards. By appropriating an advertising medium normally used for political campaigning during election seasons, For Freedoms continues a long tradition of artists re-imagining billboards as a space for nuanced inquiry about advertising, popular culture, and American life. These billboards emphasize the For Freedoms mission to model how art can urge communities into greater participation and action, foster nuanced discourse, and they demonstrate how the organization has transformed public commercial space into a showcase for visual art on a large-scale.