CREATE ART!
67,800 years ago, a human being, likely an indigenous Australian, sprayed pigment over their hand to leave a handprint on the wall in the Liang Metanduno cave system in Indonesia.
67,800 years.
Art.
Art so old that glaciers still covered large parts of the earth.(1)
Art.
Sealed onto the rock by mineral sediments for hundreds of thousands of years.(3)
ART.
Made by a human ancestor so old that we may not even be the same SPECIES.(4)
ART!
Surrounding that handprint, all throughout those caves, is a grand mural of paintings—animals, cultural symbols, some paintings separated in time by tens of thousands of years.(2)
Thousands of years of drawings. TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS.
And what does all of this mean?
ART IS THE BIRTHRIGHT OF OUR SPECIES!
It is what gives us soul, it is what gives us life, it is what makes us human!
It is the language that allows us to understand the world!
We are born wanting to express ourselves. We are born wanting to communicate.
We are born TO CREATE ART!
Today fascistic capitalists are trying to take our right to self expression AWAY FROM US.
After lining their pockets for a thousand years while standing on our backs, they’ve decided they DON’T NEED US ANYMORE.
They’ve STOLEN our intellectual property with PLANET-DESTROYING AI.
They have DEFUNDED the arts and DEFUNDED our education!
They REFUSE to pay artists what they are worth!
Why?
Because they don’t want us to address what they have done to the world.
They don’t want us to confront our dwindling natural resources, our futures and financial stability stripped away from us.
They don’t want us to confront the CRUELTY they have inflicted on a global scale!
They don’t want us to remember to love the world, to love each other, to work for a better future!
They want us SUBMISSIVE. They want us DISTRACTED. They want us OVERWHELMED.
And most importantly, they want us to CONSUME and not CREATE.
For if we create art, we remember WHO and WHAT WE ARE.
We are COMPASSIONATE.
We are POWERFUL.
We are HUMAN!
And we WILL NOT stay silent!
Don’t allow your humanity to be taken away from you.
REFUSE to be distracted!
REFUSE to be cowed!
REFUSE to listen to their lies!
And most importantly,
CREATE ART!
Works cited:
1. Johnson, W. Hilton. “Pleistocene Epoch | Characteristics, Plants, Animals, Climate, & Facts.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 30 July 2018, www.britannica.com/science/Pleistocene-Epoch.
2. Lee, Byeongku. “World’s Oldest Known Cave Painting Found in Indonesia, Dated to 67,800 Years Ago.” Dongascience.com, 22 Jan. 2026,www.dongascience.com/en/news/76058. Accessed 27 Feb. 2026.
3. Rockson, Gabrielle. “Hand Painting Made Almost 68,000 Years Ago Believed to Be Oldest Cave Art Ever Found.” People.com, 2026, people.com/hand-painting-68000-years-ago-oldest-cave-art-11890281. Accessed 27 Feb. 2026.
4. Starr, Michelle. “World’s Oldest Rock Art Discovered in Indonesian Cave.” ScienceAlert, 21 Jan. 2026, www.sciencealert.com/worlds-oldest-rock-art-discovered-in-indonesian-cave. Accessed 27 Feb. 2026.