Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has launched a fundraiser to take her Stop Telling Women To Smile campaign to cities across the country and around the world. The public art project launched between Philadelphia and Brooklyn has caught fire since it first emerged, garnering everything from visceral reactions to an overabundance of praise. The popularity of the deviant installation has even found Fazlalizadeh's project popping up at gallery exhibitions - a distinct departure from the graffitied walls and city intersections where the works are often spotted. Whether the words anchoring the campaign hang from blighted buildings, gallery spaces or up-turned lips, the effects of the public art project remain decidedly potent. The emphatic statements anchoring the images address the massive issue of street harassment and the cat-calling culture that affects most women at some point during their daily lives.
By gutting the feeble verbal advances and sly condescension that has sustained the egos of many men, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has begun the cycle of exposing and breaking the tradition of subtle and sometimes hyper-sexualized verbal abuse that women (and individuals in the LGBTQ community) have shouldered in silence for ages; the cold expressions of the women in the drawings drives the seriousness of the issue home. Harnessing the power generated by the project, she plans to take her work on the road to spread the campaign to cities across the United States and eventually around the world. She has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds necessary to travel and offer the project to audiences outside of Brooklyn; the goal is to raise $15,0000 in 26 days. With 22 days left, the project is less than $1000 away from meeting its goal. Check the footage below to get the full scoop on the fundraising campaign for Tatyana Fazlalizadeh's Stop Telling Women To Smile campaign. Donate to the campaign via Kickstarter.
