For her contribution, Jetter—best known for her politically charged drawings, sculptures, prints, and books—created a linocut of writer George Orwell, famous for his warnings about fascism and authoritarianism, with the tagline, “Art illuminates dark times.”
Jetter first encountered Orwell’s work when she read his novel 1984 (1949) as a seventh grader. The book’s ideas and imagery transfixed her. “The glass paperweight with the tiny coral—‘a little chunk of history they’ve forgotten to alter’—was so poignant,” she says. Her SVA poster transforms that fragile object into a crystal ball that presents an ominously fiery vision of the future.
“Orwell was a seer for our own time,” she says. “His warnings about the corruption of language and the destruction of thought still ring true. It’s chilling to see how easily authoritarianism creeps in.”
The fire within Jetter’s crystal ball alludes to book burnings and the deliberate erasure of history—acts that Orwell predicted with startling accuracy. “I imagined him predicting that his own books would be burned in the future,” she says. Money, too, is swallowed by the flames, a signal that authoritarianism eventually consumes a society’s culture and economy alike.
“It’s comforting to know that most of my fellow subway riders already know we’re living in dark times,” Jetter says, though she hopes her poster, like its inspiration, also imparts a message of resilience. “If you read the appendix of 1984, it’s narrated from the future—and it’s not written in Newspeak. That means there’s hope. That’s what art can give us.”
Jetter’s fall 2025 SVA poster is on view on subway platforms across New York City through October.