MIGRATE PARTNERS WITH MAJOR VISUAL ARTISTS TO CREATE REVERSIBLE FACE MASKS FOR CHARITY

Project will benefit the Refugee Community Kitchen by raising £10,000, which will supply 15,000 hot meals for the UK’s homeless.

Migrate Art, the art organization fundraising to support displaced and homeless people, has partnered with 10 major contemporary artists and illustrators to create limited editions of re-usable, reversible face masks.

Artists include the creative duo from FriendsWithYou, who have collaborated with Pharell Williams, J. Balvin and Alice + Olivia, as well as British artist Helen Beard, architecture and art polymath Richard Woods, and the king of doodling Jon Burgerman.

An initial set of five masks will be released on Monday June 1st, with a new design released every Monday at 11am for five concecutive weeks.

The masks will be sold for £19.99, or as packs of five for £79.99, and be produced with, and support an independent business in the UK, with all profits benefitting Migrate’s charity partners, Refugee Community Kitchen, who have been feeding homeless people in the UK throughout lockdown The campaign aims to raise £10,000 which would allow Refugee Community Kitchen to provide 15,000 meals.

The masks will be available for pre-sale through the Migrate website from Monday June 1st at 11am.

“This pandemic and lockdown has had a serious effect on charity funding, which ultimately negatively impacts the lives of the most vulnerable people in our societies. Refugee Community Kitchen have continued to put themselves at risk and have been out on the streets every week to feed the UK’s homeless- they are some of the unsung heroes of this crisis. When we saw for-profit businesses start to pre-sell face mask designs, we saw an opportunity to raise money for a good cause, and create a beautiful, high quality product with some of our favourite artists. We want to offer a more morally- balanced alternative for people and to put some positivity out into the world during a challenging time”
– Simon Butler, founder, Migrate Art

“Despite the chaos and devastation of the COVID-19 crisis, Refugee Community Kitchen has continued to serve nourishing food to people in need at points throughout the UK. In London and Edinburgh, we are carefully preparing and serving hot meals every week. We also provide food to vulnerable individuals, families, food banks and other food outreach projects. We are deeply committed to addressing food poverty in Northern France and the UK and continue to adapt our systems and procedures in order to best be of service moving forward. We need your support as more and more people feel the crushing impact of COVID-19. The demand for our food service continues to increase as the government scheme to putthe homeless in hotels has ended and more people lose their incomes.”
– Refugee Community Kitchen

“We are always looking for ways to help our fellow human. We feel wearing a mask is the safe and considerate measure to containing this virus, and we wanted people to be able to spread good vibes to themselves and others with our Little Cloud pattern.”
– Sam Borkson, Friends With You art to aid

‘I’m delighted to be building my ‘brick wall’ masks for Migrate Art , I initially worked with them on their Multicolour project last year and have kept up to date with the amazing work they do helping those affected by the ongoing migration crisis’
– Richard Woods, artist

‘It’s a privilege to help, in some small way, an organization such as Refugee Community Kitchen, who have helped many many people and fed millions. Helping and supporting others in need is the positive good-kindof-infectious we should be spreading around these days.’
-Jon Burgerman, artist and illustrator

About Migrate Art:
Migrate Art has raised has raised over £175,000 for their charity partners, which has funded projects that offer food, shelter, education and psychological support to tens of thousands of displaced people in the UK, France, Greece and Iraq. They collaborated by over 30 of the world’s leading artists including Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, Shepard Fairey, Antony Gormley, Mona Hatoum and many more. Simon Butler founded Migrate Art in 2016 after first visiting the Calais Jungle refugee camp in Northern France, and was later joined by Ian Syer through their mutual desire to use art to improve lives. Simon had previously worked in a number of London’s most prominent contemporary art galleries, including Newport Street Gallery, White Cube and Lazarides, and Ian is the founder of www.myartbroker.com, one of the UK’s leading online art market places.

About Refugee Community Kitchen:
Refugee Community Kitchen serves hot, nourishing meals to displaced people in the UK and France, having supported almost 3 million people since December 2015. Refugee Community Kitchen have delivered almost 3 million meals to homeless and displaced people in the last four years. Their operation started in Calais, but they now feed people across Northern France, throughout the UK and also in parts of Belgium. Although they had to stop their operations in France due to the French lockdown, they re-focused all their energies to feeding people in the UK. During this time when we are all vulnerable, people living on the streets become even more vulnerable. RCK help these exposed people in the most direct way possible- by providing regularly hot meals for anyone that needs them.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Initial 5 masks,
Monday June 1st 11am:
Kai & Sunny (16.5k followers)@kaiandsunny
Helen Beard (90.8k followers)@helenbeardart
Jon Burgerman (115k followers)@jonburgerman
Miaz Brothers (8.4k followers)@miazbrothers
Richard Woods (10.2k followers)@richardwoodsstudio

Subsequent weekly mask releases (order TBC):
Camille Wahala (153k followers)@camillewahala
Friends With You (134k followers)@friendswithyou
Craig & Karl (68k followers)@craigandkarl
Mike Perry (96k followers)@mikeperrystudio
Philip Colbert (17.7k followers)@philipcolbert
Swoon (148k followers)@swoonstud

@migrateart / www.migrateart.com / #masksformeals / press@migrateart.com