How do you clean up plastic bags from the street while providing homes for women that can be BUILT by women for women all in the developing world? Ubuntu.

How can you simultaneously invigorate tried and true building methods to make them more accessible for locally available materials and for strength capacities specifically geared towards women? Ubuntu

How can you literally blow your own mind? Ubuntu
…

Ubuntu-Blox (oo-BOON-too)is a revolutionary idea for simultaneously cleaning up the planet and creating sustainable housing. Each block is made of three metal wires and 100% recycled plastics. The machine that makes the Ubuntu-Blox is simple and requires little physical effort to create a block about one square foot in size.

The block is made by compressing the plastics together and binding them similar to how one would a hay bail.

The process is easy and involves no burning or refinement. Almost any plastics can be used to create a block, including the plastics not currently being processed by recycling centers. These plastics, such as film and foam plastics, are ending up in landfills because they are not considered usable.

Check out our Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ubuntu-Blox/130434587030261

For me, they are practiced homework in seeking beauty to find beauty. At least these poor souls have found a home with Andre Eugene and managed to avoid the anonymity of the mass graves just outside the city.
Twinkle lights always help, too.

About Atis Resistans: 
Grand Rue is the main avenue that runs a north-south swathe through downtown Port au Prince from Bel Air and La Saline to La Cimetière and Carrefour. At the southern end of Grand Rue, amongst the labyrinthine warren of back streets that line the avenue, is an area that traditionally has produced small handicrafts for the ever-diminishing tourism market. This close-knit community is hemmed in on all sides by the makeshift car repair district, which serves as both graveyard and salvation for the cities increasingly decrepit automobiles.

The artists Celeur and Eugène both grew up in this atmosphere of junkyard make-do, survivalist recycling and artistic endeavour. Their powerful sculptural collages of engine manifolds, TV sets, wheel hubcaps and discarded lumber have transformed the detritus of a failing economy into bold, radical and warped sculptures. Their work references their shared African & Haitian cultural heritage, a dystopian sci-fi view of the future and the positive transformative act of assemblage.
The artists from Grand Rue are extending the historical legacy of assemblage to the majority world. Their use of the readymade components are driven by economic necessity combined with creative vision and cultural continuity. Their work is transformative on many different allegorical levels, the transformation of wreckage to art, of disunity to harmony and of three young men, with no formal arts training, to the new heirs of a radical and challenging arts practice that has reached down through both modernist and post-modern arts practice.

Not a big deal in Haiti where public bathing, public defecation and general lack of clothing leave residents showing more than they might care to show.
HOWEVER. I could never photograph the girls swimming because I couldn’t bare to trade their dignity for capturing a few digital smiles.

A swim team in Orinda, Calif. donated these swimsuits and Project HOPE Art friend Alex Mace brought the girls their own chòtdeben for the first time.
Pure Joy.

Items needed: headband, 16-20 gauge wire, scissors, 1/4 yard of your fave fabric, needle, thread

1. Bend wire to the shape of bunny ears.
2. Lay the molded wire on top of the lace and stitch both pieces together.
3. Cut along wired border.
4. Wrap both bunny ears to headband.

Bunny Ears in 10 Minutes.

See our essay here.

Port au Prince, Haiti: Bleak Landscapes and Grim Living Conditions meet your arch nemesi: Vibrant Color, Laughter and Creativity.

In this war against despair the best weapon is intentional whimsy. The idea that things can be unnecessary for survival and yet totally necessary for LIVING.

In my travels throughout Haiti it is art that is constantly amusing the masses. Inspiring them to not give up or give in. But to laugh and appreciate what is and to make it through another day.

Connecting with the children of Haiti, the next generation of leaders, has forever changed how I approach obstacles in my own life. I am now grateful for every mouthful of food. For every blanket on my soft bed. For every mile I drive in my own car. For every chance I have to tell someone I love them. For every opportunity I am afforded to chase my dreams.

-Melissa Schilling

MOSS GRAFFITI: No messy paints, no spray cans, no destruction. If you grow tired of your green graffiti then you can just clear it away and chuck it in your compost bin.

Artist, Anna Garforth has been working with moss for some time. She was inspired by guerrilla gardening and started to make these beautiful grassy sculptures that bring the natural world into our urban environments in a different way. It certainly gives a new meaning to the term Urban Gardening.

“Garforth uses natural and recycled materials to spread her own brand of social commentary and sustainable design concepts. Her ideas are in turn seeds for new growth and a valid and vital avenue of exploration.”