Get Your Moja Working

Moja Moja is tonight! Sorry for the late notice on this one, but a a friend of mine, Duncan MacCallum handed me an invite last night. I felt the cause was too great to pass up on account of short notice. Besides, the art will be up until November 26th. So scurry on down to autoOne, 1755 West 3rd ave. (at Burrard), from 6:00-9:30.

What is it? "A select group of artists have come together to create interdisciplinary art in collaboration with photographs taken by the children of the SHERP orphanage in Maralal, Kenya." Sounds rad. For example, the 48" x 16" acrylic on canvas above by Norah Borden titled "And the birds resting in the tree sang, sawa sawa, amani, umoja" (courtesy of Winsor Gallery) is based on the photograph by Sakati Lenaimalda.

I was talking with Duncan about the project, and from what i gather, this is a FOR profit enterprise, meaning that the orphans are gonna make some cash money. Trade not aid steez. This is way better than donating proceeds because it builds the economic infrastructure of developing nations, in this case Kenya. This is one of the primary concerns of initiatives such as Fair Trade by Oxfam. Whereas aid undermines the ability of the country to establish itself as an econmic entity, fair trade encourages it. So much of the developing world's resources go into maiking "cash crops" such as coffee and cut flowers.

The Vancouver artists include Graeme Berglund, Lisa Birke, Norah Borden, Charles Forsberg, Gretchen Gammell, Jim Gislason, Tania Gleave, Angela Grossmann, Kristopher Grunert, Gabryel Harrison, Heidi Johansen, Chris Jordon, Duncan MacCallum, Mark Mizgala, Christian Nicolay, Catherine Pulkinghorn, Danny Singer, George Vergette, Liza Visagie, and Richard Edward Wlodarczak.