The beginning of Factor-H took place in Mendoza, Argentina, in 2012, and we celebrated the beginning of our journey together as a team through music and dance. A tango troupe volunteered to take us into a magical and complex journey – one that we continue to take together through our humanity. Art has always been an intrinsic part of our mission.
Art can inspire social change and therefore, we want to incorporate art as a key medium for improving the quality of life of the communities we work in.
ART 4 HD is therefore a key aspect of our work – ART for the betterment of society, for social inclusion, and to bring into the open those who until now have been invisible. ART 4 HD seeks to raise awareness and promote social change. Whether dance, photography or street art – we seek to work with local artists to bring HD out into the open and to bring international attention to the small villages where our friends live.
We are lucky to have the help of several incredible artists whose dedication to social change brought us in close contact.
We collaborate with Venezuelan photographer Vladimir Marcano, whose book EL MAL describes the conditions of HD patients in Barranquitas, Venezuela. Vladimir’s photographs capture the conditions in this town very well – the raw beauty of the Lake, the ever present disease and poverty, the hope of the new generation, the abandonment of the late stage patients. You can buy the book in Amazon.
Vladimir is now working with Factor-H to document the at-risk children sponsored under our Kids project. The pictures below show some of his latest photographs documenting the lives of these children, whose lives we are trying to change.
We also work with street artist from Colombia, DJ Lu, Juegasiempre who started the recent program Street Art for HD.
The Street Art for HD program aims to increase visibility of HD-affected communities in Latin America through street art projects. It also aims to honor the lives and struggles of HD families living in poverty and neglected by society.
The program started in Colombia in 2019 and captured 3 main themes that surround HD – the person affected with HD, the caregivers, and the children, whose lives are affected by the disease of a parent, and by the fact that they too might inherit the disease. The project captured all of these three dimensions in several towns in the Caribbean Colombian Coast where a lot of the patients we work with live.
We are now in the process of expanding efforts to other countries and communities, including Venezuela, Chile and Peru, in addition to Italy and Scotland. Next on our plans is Maracaibo, Venezuela, in March 2020, where DJ LU will travel there with Factor-H to paint murals alongside Venezuelan artists.
The project is managed by Selene Capodarca from Factor-H and DJLu, our muralist and resident artist from Bogotá, Colombia. You can follow DJLu’s Juegsiempre in Instagram
Matt Rota is an illustrator who has recently become associated with our kids’ program at Factor-H. Below are some of the illustrations he created recently for some poems I wrote about the kids to commemorate the completion of the 5th year of the program in Colombia. What began as an attempt to help a few kids in San Angel, Colombia, grew to support 42 kids for 5 years and now 120 kids in Venezuela (now started our third year of support).
I woke up in the middle of the night during the Christmas holidays and wrote a few poems, which I shared with our friend and colleague Matt. I shared pics from the trips I took together with the children of Colombia, and he chose a few images to represent the work we have done, and the sentiments behind the program. Below are a couple of Matt’s illustrations and the poems, and below you can see a Youtube video with all of them.
You can see Matt’s amazing artwork here: https://www.mattrotasart.com
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