Call for artists...

Pssst...hey buddy. Wanna do a shirt commission?

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I'm looking for eight digital artists from the state of Goias to design eight t-shirts. At least that's what we're doing right now, subject to change without notice, but the purpose of this is to promote digital art as a profession for small town kids in Goias, sell t-shirts and put the money into paying the artists for more designs and promoting more artists, getting displays installed, even ads in the paper. All this promotion will be done in Bairro Central in Goiania, that's why the project is named that. In the end, if I fail, I met some good artists, some good artists got paid, and maybe I made some t-shirts that didn't sell. If I succeed, read on:

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The situation of rural Midwestern Brazil is pretty dire when it comes to opportunity, and let's be honest, creative thinkers end up being stifled by the realities of rural living. The internet has bridged this gap in a lot of places, but Central Brazil is not one of them.

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This has caused the whole region to become a cultural black hole, sucking in culture from everywhere else and never exporting its own. Goiania represents this in everything from the presentation of advertising banners to municipal signage, everywhere you look there's a homogenized, bland, free-for-commercial-use version of a character, style, or whatever creative depiction from a culture totally divorced from the people it's serving in terms of the transmission of values, style, and character of expression in really any way except by coincidence. Authentic expressions are rare.

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In order to amplify the artists of the State of Goias and establish a reliable local content stream, [cgap] is my attempt to challenge Central Goiania to express itself in organic and authentic ways by putting their eyes on the authentic expressions of artists from their community. The strength of Goias exists in Minaçu, Rio Verde, Catalão, and Morrinhos. There are artists who can create the culture of the next generation right where we live, and those kids can grow up in an environment that's unique in the world, that reflects the unique environmental and cultural topography in and around the cerrado.