How Modesto activist uses a closed pharmacy as a political canvas

Twice a week for the past month, a man has beamed political images onto the now-closed Rite Aid at the busy intersection of Briggsmore and McHenry.

On July 10, Chelsea Themm was with her sister and two friends on the way to The Brave Bull bar downtown, discussing the changing political climate, when they saw the image of Elon Musk’s infamous tweet implicating President Donald Trump in the Epstein files plastered on the side of the shuttered Rite Aid.

“It was around 8 or 9 p.m., so it was bright,” she said. “It lit up like a billboard.”

Colby Zavala, 49 and from Modesto, said he comes to the corner around twice a week to cast tweets, memes, photos and statements onto the wall. He is an organizer with the local chapter of 50501, a group that’s been organizing national and local protests against the Trump administration. 

“I look at this as the same thing as standing on a corner holding a sign,” Zavala said. 

On July 24, he placed a small projector on the roof of his car and adjusted the settings. He zoomed in and out of the images, trying to get people’s attention as they crossed the large intersection. The week before, one of the other organizers shined their phone light to try to attract more eyes to the message.

“I’ll just kind of gauge people looking even though it’s dark, you can kind of see people’s heads,” he said. 

Avonelle Tomlinson, a fellow organizer with 50501, said she is impressed with how the growing team of organizers works together. One organizer’s mom helps Colby find material for the slides. 

“I love that there’s another layer of reaching out, another layer of exposure and another layer of seeing something that is not on mainstream news,” Tomlinson said.

Zavala said most of the responses of people driving by have been positive, but he has had a couple of negative reactions. He said one person yelled from their car, “Loser!”

He said he used this format mainly because of its legality. There is no law in California against “optical graffiti” specifically and other laws targeting vandalism or nuisance would likely require some damage to the building or harassment to be taking place. 

“I think it’s a better idea than graffiti, because graffiti sometimes, because of respectability politics, degrades from your message,” Themm said. “So I think the projector was a really good idea.” 

Zavala is actively looking for more spots, but this has been his main location because of the large blank wall and its ease of access to passersby.

“There’s a couple of places downtown that I have been eyeing,” Zavala said. “I want to try to get roof access– get permission and things like that. I’m not trespassing or anything,”

Some of the images are memes he’s gleaned from the internet, others are crafted by the team of four organizers at 50501. 

“I think there’s a lot of people that aren’t aware and aren’t following politics and may not be aware of how drastic some of these actions are that the Trump administration is taking,” he said.

Some of the images of the projections went viral through the community interest Instagram page “209 Times.” Then, on July 13, a new series of images flooded onto the local Modesto subreddit.

“I’m so grateful that we have Colby and that projection idea of his is genius,” Tomlinson said. 

Zavala said a couple of bike riders have passed by and taken pictures. “A guy at the Starbucks came out and he was like ‘go back one!” Zavala said.

People outside the adjacent firehouse have stopped and looked to see what he’s doing and a police officer did stop and park nearby, but so far, no one has approached him to ask him to leave.

“I want to keep doing this as long as I can,” Zavala said.