Six creative crowdfunding projects worth supporting this April

From a wordless graphic novel to a project to turn an olive farm into a retreat for creatives and even a project turning plastic into homeware.

The first digital archive of contemporary Mexican fashion, Archivo Moda Mexicana is a promotion and content platform that will allow independent fashion designers to get to know and connect with new consumers nationally and internationally.

The folks behind this venture want to share with the world all that Mexican fashion has to offer through a single channel. It will bring burgeoning and established fashion designers together, exploring all that goes on behind their work and couture collections.

Archivo Moda Mexicana

Anna Gómez is raising funds for Archivo Moda Mexicana on Kickstarter! We present to the world what Mexican fashion has to offer through the first channel that gathers the work of independent designers.

Light Salone is social upliftment through engineering campaign with the aim of providing small-scale renewable energy to rural areas in Sierra Leone. They are a team of 10 people working passionately to innovate where it really matters using low-cost engineering solutions.

They are all about building multiple small-scale energy generators, even from recycled materials, for use in areas with limited access to technology. Light Salone has built useful appliances such as a hydro generator built from spoons with an output of 220 Volts, a fuel-free generator with an output of 300 Watts and a solar book for students living in remote environments to study.

Light Salone! Small-scale renewable energy for Sierra Leone

Mohamed A Kamara is raising funds for Light Salone! Small-scale renewable energy for Sierra Leone on Kickstarter! Building multiple small-scale energy generators, even from recycled materials, for use in rural areas in Sierra Leone

A vibrant, surreal animation from Hong Kong, Dragon's Delusion is a film about artificial intelligence, humanity's fixation with eternal life and the question of where the soul sits among all of it. Renowned art director and animator Kongkee and his team aim to make an animation that delivers dazzling visual effects and depictions of human emotions that transcend time, aimed at young adults.

離騷幻覺 Dragon's Delusion - The Animated Sci-fi Project

kongkee is raising funds for 離騷幻覺 Dragon's Delusion - The Animated Sci-fi Project on Kickstarter! Dragon's Delusion: This is not just an animation. This is an untold secret of our soul

Sandhelden is a young tech-startup based in the city of Augsburg, Germany. They are a diverse team of designers and engineers with a vision to set new standards in recycling processes using their self-developed 3D printing technology dubbed "Binder Jetting".

Sandhelden turns plastic refuse into beautifully modelled bowls, kitchen sinks and other durable items for the home. Their production process entails crushing any kind of plastic waste into a rudimentary powder (which can also be mixed with discarded ceramics or sand), before fusing the powder into a new form using a binding technique in 3D-printing. 

3D Printing of Recycled Plastic Waste

Sandhelden is raising funds for 3D Printing of Recycled Plastic Waste on Kickstarter! We want to produce 3D printed furniture that is made out of 100% recycled plastic waste.

For the comic book reader with a taste for the darker stuff, Z is a 96-page psychotropic graphic novel by Spanish visual artist Valentin Ramon. Designed to circumvent the divisions of language and tell its unusual story without speech, Z follows the life of a nihilistic detective set against a dystopian backdrop.

According to the creator, "Z is a personal view about the origins of terrorism. Expect some government conspiracies, diabolic corporations and religious blindness. It is a visual, dystopian metaphor inside a song without lyrics, a lonely scream on the sea of human stupidity inside a silly book."

"Z" - A wordless graphic novel

Valentin Ramon is raising funds for "Z" - A wordless graphic novel on Kickstarter! " I feel like this is the kind of work comics is made for" Ellis Bojar

Head of the UnSchool of Disruptive Design, Leyla Aceroglu, is opening a creative incubation space situated in Portugal. She and her team are giving a dilapidated olive oil farm a new lease on life by turning it into a creative retreat location for designers to brew new projects away from the urban hustle.

Steeped in local history, this Quinta (farm) is being regenerated into a new haven for creative and cultural experiences: a Brain Spa.

A Brain Spa for Creative Optimists: The CO Project Portugal

Leyla Acaroglu is raising funds for A Brain Spa for Creative Optimists: The CO Project Portugal on Kickstarter! Building a unique creative retreat facility Transforming an old olive farm into a living learning lab social entrepreneurs.