swoon has been a household name in the world of
street art for the past few years. her handmade
approach, employing the painstaking medium
of wood cuts for her wheat-pasted characters
has earned her a solid reputation based on hard
work, dedication and a serious amount of heart.
long concerned with socio-political content
swoon's latest and perhaps most ambitious
is
the konbit shelter project. here, she and a
group of artists, architects, builders and
engineers have pooled their knowledge and
resources to makea difference in post
earthquake haiti.
swoon has created a print to help raise funds for
the project (image is posted above). for more
information on the project you can check out
the run down from
upper playground who
have teamed up with swoon on this print:
Swoon and Upper Playground Present:
The Walki Print for The Konbit Shelter Project
The Konbit Shelter Project was created with the
idea that a group of artists, engineers, architects
and builders could pool their individual knowledge,
resources and time to make a lasting difference
in post-earthquake Haiti. Konbit Shelter is a
rebuilding initiative, which uses dome-style structures
and the super-adobe technique of earth bag
architecture to create sustainable, inexpensive and
dependable housing for the people of Haiti. While
the structures are extremely resistant to natural
disasters, they also have the major benefit of being
comprised of 90% earth and requiring no specialized
scaffolding and understructure to build - making it a
viable option for the people of Haiti to continue building
on their own once they learn the method.
At the center of this project has been NYC-based
Swoon, whose intricate wheatpastes and paper-cutouts
have been seen on the walls of countless cities and
galleries. While humanitarian architecture and street-
based art that Swoon is known for appear to be vastly
different mediums, the concepts behind them remain
the same to her: "To bring things of beauty to people
where they are, where they need it. To turn up where
you are not expected to be, and to make everything
out of love."
During the summer of 2010, the team behind The Konbit
Shelter Project traveled to the village of Bigones, Haiti
with the goal of educating and employing the local
residents while constructing a community center using
this technique. Now, the team will be returning again
on December 21st to begin construction on single
family homes, and the sale of Swoon's Walki print will
immediately go towards funding the construction of
these homes.
The efforts of the individuals involved in The Konbit
Shelter Project are an amazing example of people
doing everything in their power to give back. While
we who make up the general public don't always
have the time and resources to do incredible things
like this on our own, it's important that we support
those who take it upon themselves to do what we
can not - which is the idea behind the sale of Swoon's
Walki print.
The Walki print itself is an immediately touching
portrait by Swoon of a boy named Walki who lives
in the village of Bigones and spent time with the
Konbit Shelter team at the community center building
site this last summer. The print is made of a three-
layer screenprint on handmade Indian jute paper
measuring 13" x 21" and is limited at an edition of
300 - all proceeds from the sale will go towards
support of the Konbit Shelter Project.
The print will only be on sale for a limited time
until January 1st and is priced affordably at $125
so that as many people as possible can be
involved with this unique project. The print is
available exclusively online at the
Upper Playground Web Store.
RELEVANT LINKS:
ABOUT SWOON:
Swoon is a Brooklyn-based artist whose life-
sized woodblock and cut-paper portraits hang
on walls in various states of decay in cities
around the world. She has designed and built
several large-scale installations, most notably
the Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea at Deitch
Projects in 2008. Her pieces have been
collected by of The Museum of Modern Art,
The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Tate Modern.
Major pieces have appeared at PS1, Yerba
Buena Center for the Arts, and Black Rat Press.
Swoon has been traveling for the past several
years creating exhibitions and workshops in the
United States and abroad. Her artistic process is
predicated on the belief that art is an immersive,
provocative, and transformative experience for
its participants. Although Swoon’s aesthetics can
be seen as an outgrowth of street art, her
engagement with ethical living and making art
share a close kinship with the idealism of off-grid,
barter-based cultures and economies based on
sharing. She uses scavenged and local materials
and embraces print media as a potent means of
action for social change.
ABOUT UPPER PLAYGROUND:
Based in San Francisco, CA, Upper Playground
is the leader in today’s progressive art movement
with its innovative apparel and accessories line
and art galleries. Since 1999, Upper Playground
has been recognized as a catalyst for the fusion
of fashion with fine art. UP apparel and
accessories are designed by local and international
artists including Sam Flores, Jeremy Fish,
Estevan Oriol, David Choe, and Alex Pardee.
The Upper Playground collection is sold in over
300 boutiques worldwide and online. In addition,
Upper Playground has stores and galleries in
San Francisco, Berkeley, Sacramento, Portland,
Seattle, Mexico City and London.
