Showing posts with label street art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label street art. Show all posts

Monday, March 17, 2014

Public art meets crowd-funding for social change #ANOTHERLIGHTUP in Cape Town, South Africa






 On De Waal Drive, driving out of the city bowl in Cape Town, South Africa, you have the view of the Cape peninsula's valley also known to many people as The Flats.  The Flats extends all the way to areas like Monwabisi, a sub-area of Khayelitsha, one of Cape Town's most populated districts.


 On that same drive, you can see the new Urban Visionary, a multi-storey mural and light installation created by the founders of Thingking and artist Faith47.  They collaborated on the new design and have enabled public street art to be a catalyst for change through crowdfunding for a social cause.  They aim to raise funds for public street lights to be installed in Monwabisi Park, Khayelitsha, through the organisation VPUU (Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading).  For every light that is funded for in Monwabisi, the Urban Visionary mural is lit up in the evening- inspiring and engaging more people to become more active members in their society through #anotherlightup


 To read more about it here and to donate to #anotherlightup:



About the project | #ANOTHERLIGHTUP







#ANOTHERLIGHTUP from Design Indaba on Vimeo.

The mural on the same wall before Feb 2014 Urban Visionary #anotherlightup was put up

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Exposing the Truth: Make something happen.


                                             Follow my blog with Bloglovin

via Exposing The Truth.co
Draw something, cook something, sing something, build something, make something, Buy Nothing.

 I also would like to add:

 Grow Something
 Share Something
 Trade Something
 Teach Something
 Do Something

 X

Friday, June 14, 2013

We Can Help Eachother Flourish

Original embroidery by Nina Montenegro

CREATE ART
to
 convey messages
relate to global issues, systems thinking, and communal concerns.


Saturday, September 22, 2012

World Rhino Day 2012: Do you care if Rhinos disappear?

 

 Our Earth loses 2 rhinos a day due to acts of killing these endangered animals for money.

 Rhinos are poached predominantly for exotic animal-part trade or medicinal mythical cures-medical ideas that have been scientifically proven to not treat or cure what they are advertised for.

 The value of protecting rhinos needs to be taught in order to replace the value of trading their parts.  Poaching is not the only problem, but it is the most important one to stop as educational projects and programmes can reverse the idea that the demand for them is necessary.

   A man in South Africa, as seen in NHU Africa's Saving Rhino Phila has begun to farm as a way to influence a flood of rhinos horns into the marketplace, thus reducing their price and striving to maintain a healthy rhino population. But farming rhinos is not a solution as it doesn't eliminate the myths of these medical 'cures' and provides a 'safe' place for killing animals that will be may one day be called "previous wildlife, now cattle".  Although there are other human-caused risks to rhinos, it is imperative to stop poaching these animals and supporting positive wildlife conservation education.


  Human-centric ideas such as rhino horn uses for human consumption only decrease the longevity of our wildlife and will drive them into extinction.  We have a responsibility to our planet to work towards becoming wildlife conservation activists in our own capacity.

  Chris Mason from Natural History Unit Africa, produced and directed this Public Service Announcement, PSA, for World Rhino Day 2012: a Call for action to support Anti-poaching projects by WESSA, The Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa. They filmed it on Kloof Street, Cape Town City Bowl, on a timelapse and reversed the Mak 1 One art piece into a disappearing artpiece.

  It asks a question:  Do you care if Rhino's disappear?  

    Let's hope this message and many other efforts allow us to care everyday to take responsibility to the stop of poaching.  

  Ideas to combat poaching through education projects are welcome to be shared here.




  Other artists share concern about the killing of Rhinos.  The Wooster Collective showcased words and pictures from another prolific Cape Town based graffiti aerosol artist, Faith47,  painting in Shanghai, click here to see and read.  She brought the spirit of African Rhinos into Asia.


Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Athens Graffiti Art Tells a Tale: Anti-Violence, Anti-Racist, Anti-Xenophobic


  I used to work in Exharia, Athens-Greece.  I read the walls from the Ommonia Metro station all the way to Exharia's platia.  For me, reading the walls shared the visual pulse of the city, the issues, the political climate, the stories unheard. Today, I don't read the walls.  I live in South Africa.  But today I read the Athens News from the internet: "Racist violence escalates." Citizens hating citizens, humans attacking humans within these man-made borders we create.

  The unrest in Greece is not isolated there.  The messages I read on the walls in Greece reaffirmed why I love graffiti.  They portray different headlines and display opinions in different syntax without a web address or a printing press.  Just some spray paint, a marker or a sticker will do.

  They are public forums.  Tales are told.  I took these photos last summer and the messages still ring true.  Anti-violence.  Anti-Xenophobic.  What is Xenios Zeus, the Athens police campaign to kick out anyone without govt. papers, going to do for the betterment of our world?   To all the writers in Athens: Keep pasting, keep writing peace on Athens streets and advocate for change.

A wheat paste paper sticker on the wall with the image of HATE.  Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

This is my favorite of our cultural pluralism.  Freedom is a global right.

Greedy servings of the pie.  Austerity serving anyone?  Pro-Hemp stencil on the top right corner.

Anti-Nazi stencil, Anti-Prejudice, Anti-Racism, Anti-Xenophobic!

The Television will not be Revolutionised

"Running from the thoughts, I keep bumping back into it, trying to get away-keeps dragging me into"
Note: look are the Burqa stencil and then the X over it. 

In the streets near the public university 

Anyone is a Citizen member

Pissing on the Golden Dawn (far-right political party in Athens, Greece)
   

 


  

Monday, July 18, 2011

Messages on the wall: Public Street Art


Meeting Os Gemeos en Atenas in 2005 was a highlight-sharing my writing style with them, checking their sketches and the motivation behind the wall they were commissioned to paint lit my street art passion into a higher gear.  The wall they painted is the whole bus station that lines the...in Gazi.  It’s images of people riding bicycles in nature, using alternative methods of transportation than diesel-guzzling motors.  Like a photo, contrast is important.  
I wonder now if there is a bike lane on that road? :)
Now back in South Africa: 
 Fear is a prison.  Fear is in the woman dressed in pink.  She says, “Excuse me, do you have permission to paint on this wall?”
“Yes, we do” 
“No, you don’t!”
“Yes, we do.”
“I’m going to call the police and . . . . Blah blah blah.”  Fear is a prison, dear sister in pink. And thank you for wearing pink but your threats we do not fear. I may rather ask for what is threatening you?  Has anyone but yourself ever solved what it threatening you?  I assure you, police are just people like you and me, and so what is there to fear? Police, more art, silence, thought, there is nothing to fear.  Don’t make up threats unless do you believe you are not free? Oh so that is why you chose the prison and threaten others to join you? No thank, we do our best to stand free, come join us, you’ll like it.
“We’ve tried to uplift this area . . .” she later explained to a listening ear.
And so what is upliftment? 
To threaten your community members is not uplifting.
Use your anger to change something in yourself.
As we express ourselves freely, we uplift ourselves freely. And if we live in this community, that we can be brave and fearless in, we are uplifted because we are not threatened or threaten ourselves because we live in fear. Just like you dress in pink, you are expressing materially on your body canvas-go head! I’ll lend you my pink sweater next time I see you in the neighborhood. 
And if we live in this world, that free expressive vibration roots into each step-changing our geographical minds. And with each step, another one is taken and shared by another free individual that crosses our path, unthreatened.  And there, two souls, moving freely, uplifted by their own choices, their inspirations and individual motivations, transform, positively, the world we live in. Upliftment! 
So thank you for painting the wall red. The contrast is beautiful-uplifting-and for the next individual to say yes to the canvas, to spread their free public uplifting expression.
 And slowly, we will all move out of the prison.



Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Happy People on the Bus

The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through this town.  I snagged this picture of Bookface cause it made me smile.  I love when signs can be canvases.  I don't know where this is but me gusta.

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