The homeless New Yorkers and people who face financial hardship due to the COVID-19 crisis will be given some financial support from the Artist Plate Project. It consists of 50 artists putting together designs for a series of dinner plates, which will be sold to raise money for New Yorkers in need.
Coalition for the Homeless remains the oldest advocacy and direct service organisation for the homeless in the United States. Amid COVID-19 pandemic and economical hardship, the Coalition has been fighting to protect these vulnerable members of society who might otherwise have been overlooked due to the pandemic. People receive not only medical attention, but shelter, warmth and food, especially during the winter months.
Artist Plate Project is the charity launched the initiative after the Artwalk NY annual gala and auction. Both these events were cancelled due to the corona restrictions, as a way to keep on raising funds for the vulnerable at such a time.
The plate was the specific form of crockery chosen, as a representation of comfort, nourishment and the home. Artists involved include Ed Ruscha, Jenny Holzer, Rashid Johnson, Lawrence Weiner, Sarah Sze, and Adam Pendleton, and the plates are made up of both new and repurposed designs. One notable design includes the words ‘negro sunshine’, taken from Melanctha, a novella from Gertrude Stein’s 1909 collection, Three Lives.
The Artist Plate Project charity has declared that each plate could feed 75 homeless people, and therefore each plate design is one of 175, to be bought at $175. The range will be available until December 15t, 2020.
