Empowering System:
REBEL NELL, 2013–PRESENT
This is a project. It was founded by Amy Peterson and Diana Russell. It is dated 2013–present.
“Defiant jewelry with a purpose,” Rebel Nell’s pieces are made from locally “harvested” fallen Detroit graffiti. The jewelry—necklaces, earrings, rings, cuff links, and bracelets—are designed and made by women transitioning from a shelter to an independent life. The Rebel Nell team works directly with local homeless shelter caseworkers to hire women as “creative designers.” With a primary goal to restore confidence, Rebel Nell also provides financial literacy and entrepreneurship classes and offers regular meetings with financial and empowerment advisors.
I think this system is empowering in an amazing way. This system starts by having graffiti, which is a form of art, on the streets, for everyone. Then it is recycled once it becomes useless, so it also helps the environment. Then it empowers women, which is amazing because this makes the system go on, because woman empower more people, woman push society forward in different ways so this positive system goes on and on.
Ineffective System:
HUMANE BORDERS WATER STATIONS AND WARNING POSTERS, 2000–PRESENT
This is a project. It was designed by Humane Borders. It is dated 2000–present.
Responding to migrant deaths along the Arizona-Mexico border due to dehydration, Humane Borders designed a system for placing water in the desert. More than 100 water stations, small tanks painted blue—the universal color of water—and tagged “AGUA” with a 30-foot-high pole and flag to increase visibility, have been deployed throughout southern Arizona, dispensing more than 100,000 gallons of water since 2001. A poster outlining the dangers of migrating on foot through the desert is distributed in shelters south of the border.
I think this system doesn’t work because it’s in the middle of encouraging a terrible system which consists in accepting that the situation in Mexico can’t get better, migrate to the USA in an illegal way which by no means is ethical, and finally be literally abused in the United States because of not having the papers of a legal citizen, this can be translated to slavery. I think this program encourages all of that and is infective.
