South African artist Faith XLVII says frustration with the current state of our social and political landscape is what drove her towards her latest project.
"Watching the disharmony, the dismantling of human rights and the continuous struggle for equality is exhausting. The only way I can keep going is if I can transform some of this into my work," she says.
The mural project in San Fransisco is called The Unbound. She says that it stems from a place of discontent and begs the question of what direction we're headed in.
The project consists of a series of white flags on buildings in a particular part of the city where meth is being dealt openly and heroine being injected right there on the pavements. Below each flag is a poetic verse adapted from ‘The Cosmic Doctrine’ by Dion Fortune.
She says: "Spending the week there was deeply saddening and further entrenched the significance of how much work needs to be done. There is a dire need for the funding of social series and mental health care in the USA. For humanitarianism of all forms. So first, we need to open the heart, and then we need to make social changes so that people have support and the planet is sustainable."
For her, this is a way of appealing for more empathy.
"It is not that I believe in an idealistic future, on the contrary I am at times overwhelmed with cynicism. But despite this, I do think that we have to push for the betterment of the future, for the sheer love of the planet and for each other. The civil liberties that we have, were fought for and we need to be vigilant in this time to protect them."
As part of the process she also spent time researching the symbolism of the white flag as well as the history of the Peace Manifesto before formulating one for this particular project.
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Spanish mural artist, Okuda, uses art to bridge cultural border
