Artist Xavier Cortada
and the Congressional Hunger Center
create mural
“Hunger Exists Here”
July 29 and July 30 are two
significant days for the Washington DC community. The
collaborative, interactive process of painting an anti-hunger mural
for the Congressional Hunger Center (CHC) is an opportunity for
policy makers, Members of Congress, community activists from towns
and cities across the country, students, low-income individuals, and
DC grassroots leaders to fuse their voice on the message of
“Hunger Exists Here.”
Participants in the painting process of this public mural include
people affected by hunger, local and national anti-hunger
leaders, and the public at large.
A December 2004 report by the
Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
reported that 9.6 million Americans lived in households that
experienced hunger in 2003. Many of this country’s hungry people
walk through our cities and towns largely anonymous. They
include the 75 year old veteran who skips meals to save money for
rent, the working mother who gives her dinner to her children so
that they don’t experience the pains of hunger, and the uninsured
cashier who cuts a meal out of her daily diet to help pay off a
large medical bill. These are some of the people in our communities
that experience hunger on a daily basis. Right here
in the DC metropolitan area, approximately 400,000 residents
are at risk of, or experiencing hunger. They do not know
where their next meal is coming from.
The goal of the CHC anti-hunger
public mural is to capture a diverse group of people’s thoughts,
feelings, and experiences with hunger and poverty in our communities
from rural backdrops to urban streets. Artist, Xavier Cortada,
expresses his thoughts on what the mural might look like.
"I think the
image I am conceptualizing is simple and succinct: People (perhaps
a family) sitting before empty dinner
plates…staring down at them. The background would be covered with
the messages we collect on site – and perhaps online." Cortada is
famous
for his collaborative large-scale murals and community art projects
for the
World Bank, the White House, the Miami Children’s Museum, and more.
He has worked with groups across four continents to produce major
projects like the International AIDS Conference murals in
Switzerland and South Africa, and peace murals in Northern Ireland
and Cyprus.
The mural will be a
"collaborative message mural" which means that words, ideas,
stories from community members and organizations will be gathered
prior to the July 29 and 30 events. On these two days, Cortada, CHC
Hunger Fellows, community members, and the public will engage in the
interactive process at the locations of Union Station, from
10:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., and the Market 5 Gallery at Eastern
Market, from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. The high volume of
crowds that frequent these public spots will be solicited to
participate. The thoughts of random strangers will be incorporated
in the project. Cortada will fuse peoples’ thoughts, drawings, and
words into a mural, which will hang in DC Central Kitchen, a
nonprofit community corporation that rescues and redistributes food
and trains low-income individuals in culinary skills, for ten
years.
The anti-hunger mural is the culmination project of the 11th
Class of Hunger Fellows.
The Bill Emerson National Hunger
Fellowship, a project of the Congressional Hunger Center, is a
unique leadership development opportunity for individuals seeking to
make a difference in the struggle to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Fellows are placed for six months with urban and rural
community-based organizations and then move to Washington DC to
connect their experience at a national organization. The mural will
be reflective of the Fellows’ experiences in the field, from food
banks in Alaska to community gardens in New Orleans. Hunger exists
in communities throughout our country.
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About Congressional Hunger Center:
The Congressional
Hunger Center (CHC) is a unique non-profit anti-hunger leadership
training organization located in Washington, D.C. Partners include
Members of Congress, Hill staff who focus on hunger and poverty, and
hundreds of hunger fighting organizations throughout the US and
overseas. CHC’s primary program activities center upon the Bill
Emerson National Hunger Fellows Program and its international
counterpart, the Mickey Leland International Fellows Program. In
both of these programs, a select group of fellows receive the
skills, knowledge and experience to become effective anti-hunger
leaders in the domestic and international arenas. As a bi-partisan
organization, CHC serves as a center where the anti-hunger community
can discuss creative solutions to end domestic and international
hunger.
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