Cafe Art 2016 My London Calendar: A 2016 photography calendar created by people who have been homeless. Unique photos, inspiring stories. A beautiful gift.
iCrowdNewswire -
Sep 13, 2015 12:16 PM ET
The Cafe Art 2016 My London calendar is a social enterprise initiative for London homelessness art groups and individuals who have been affected by homelessness.
Since 2012 sales of calendars have raised more than £45,000 for art groups, artists and vendors. This year we want to do it again but, first, we have to print the 2016 calendar and to do that we need your support.
My London is a quality product – a real art calendar, with FSC certified paper and designed for free by top London graphic firm, Carter Wong Design. The contributors to the calendar – the winning photographers – all wrote or edited their own stories.
It will cost us £10,000 to print 5,000 calendars. This is due in three instalments in October, November and December. We want to put all the money raised on Kickstarter towards the first payment to the printer in October, as well as covering other launch costs (paying the photographers, framing the exhibition and mailing the Kickstarter rewards).
– the whole printing bill in October (now £10,400 for 6,000 calendars),
– the photographers (£1,750 in prize money given out on 12 October at the Award Ceremony). All photographers will also receive 50% of profits from the sale of the individual photo rewards.
– printing the photograph rewards and
– sending the rewards.
We can now frame the exhibition in new frames. The original plans were to re-use the frames from last year. Now we can hang last year’s photos in independent London cafes as part of our Art In Cafes programme.
Any excess money earned will go towards the project, including managing the markets table in Spitalfields E1 Market between late October and early January. Spitalfields E1 donates the table for no charge, but we help volunteers and participants with transport costs.
The calendar will be produced by PrintHouse Corporation, a London firm. This will support the local economy and will also reduce the environmental impact caused by shipping product from an overseas printer.
The project is self-funding from calendar sales only, and receives no government money. We are supported in kind by The RPS and FujiFilm and endorsed by Homeless Link, the umbrella organisation for homelessness charities and organisations.
Cafe Art has several goals:
• To empower people affected by homelessness, not only through photography and art, but through connecting with the public.
• To tell the stories of individuals who are affected by homelessness,
• To raise awareness in the general public about issues from the participant’s personal perspective.
All the money raised goes back into the project, either to pay for the printing of the photographs and calendar, rewarding the winning photographers, providing art materials for art groups affected by homelessness or helping individuals attend art courses.
Art is seen as a major way for people to recover from the trauma of being homeless.
The following 7 images are part of the 2015 My London exhibition (Spitalfields Arts Market, 12-18 October) and although they missed out on being in the calendar, they are still available for purchase as rewards (as single photos, with a calendar, or framed):