Our friend artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh – the woman behind the “Stop Telling Women to Smile” wheat pasting and t-shirts – is launching a Kickstarter today for an exciting new project!
From Tatyana:
Stop Telling Women to Smile is my public art project about gender based street harassment. I started this project in Brooklyn last fall and to my surprise, it has been viewed and shared around the globe. This work is very important to me, and I the huge response to it just shows me that it’s important to other people as well. Therefore, the next logical step for this project is to take it across the country to new cities.
I plan to create all new pieces in several cities that address the type of harassment that happens specifically in that area. I’ll sit down with women to interview them and hear their stories of harassment. I’ll then draw their portraits and use them to design new posters, including text that is inspired by their words. Those posters will be wheat pasted in that particular city – allowing women to use their faces and voices to speak out against the exact type harassment that happens to them in their communities.
I’m launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund traveling to specific cities around the country. Funding I receive will go towards travel expenses, lodging, materials, producing and shipping the donation rewards, and bringing on board a filmmaker to document this entire process. I’ll be giving away shirts, prints, original art, and more.
I encourage you to donate to her campaign if you can! Her art is so powerful and has already raised a lot more awareness around the problem of street harassment. I just made a donation 🙂
