The Art of Understanding
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
There's a film coming out on April 24 called The Soloist. It's about a man, Jamie Foxx, who is a talented musician but is now homeless and has some sort of mental illness. He meets and befriends a journalist, Robert Downey Jr., who tries to help him reconnect with his music, dreams, and ambitions. I saw the trailer for this film a few weeks ago, and it had me tearing up a little (or... you know... a lot), so I definitely want to go see it. For those of you who haven't watched it yet, you can check out the trailer here.
I already had this film in my head when I found out that Change.org and is partnering with The Soloist and with TakePart.com to promote the film and bring awareness to homelessness.
They're presenting a slideshow called The Art of Understanding. Here's a description:
The Art of Understanding is a slideshow inspired by The Soloist that debunks some all-too-common myths about homelessness and mental illness. It also features some awesome tunes by Nuttin But Stringz and artwork by current and formerly homeless individuals.
Here's the slideshow:
I think it's certainly an interesting approach, and I really like how they're incorporating the myth-dispelling and education with the arts. It's a great way of making things a bit more accessible to people, IMO. And certainly something like this is also timely given that the rates of homelessness are up around the country.
Still, I don't think I would've heard about this if I hadn't been checking out Change.org at just the right time, so I think they might need to work on their outreach a bit more. From what I can see by checking out the TakePart website, they've got a good alliance going, but there doesn't seem to be as much creativity in what people can do to take real action.
What do you all think?
Posted by frau sally benz 10:00 AM
Labels: activism, art, non-profit, social media
