About the Exhibition
Art is “about making possibilities, making choices – and that is one of the last freedoms we have. To provide that is one of the functions of art.”
—Mel Chin
This is your chance to get involved in a nationwide project with an acclaimed contemporary artist that raises awareness about health risks of environmental damage.
The soil in New Orleans is contaminated with lead. It affects 86,000 properties in the urban area, and is especially harmful to the inner city youth who live in this region. There is a plan to de-toxify it and remove any health risks to the community. It will cost $300,000,000.00.
Contemporary artist Mel Chin has a plan to raise this money and it involves everyone across the country. The Fundred Dollar Bill Project invites you to make your own hand-drawn $100 Fundred Dollar Bill. 3,000,000 of these will be collected by the project in a veggie-oil powered armored truck and taken to the steps of Congress and asked for an equal exchange of money to clean the New Orleans soil.
You can make an $100 Fundred Dollar Bill and be part of a nation-wide public art project that will bring awareness to an environmental/health catastrophe in New Orleans.
About the Artist
Mel Chin is motivated by political, cultural, and social circumstances. Previous work has included Revival Field of 1990 aside a landfill in St. Paul, Minnesota where special plants that would extract heavy metals from the toxic soil – a project that was intended to bring the conceptual realization of the scientific process through art. Chin visited the city of Louisville in May of 2007 and spoke at the New Center for Contemporary Art discussing recent work and introduced the Fundred Dollar Bill Project to the local community.
