Kickstarter

Project

None of Your Business is a guerrilla art exhibit created by San Francisco social-change artist, Chris Darst. The exhibit is an impromptu memorial and protest for the nearly two-thousand children in the United States who lose their lives each year to child abuse and neglect.  

Intent

Two-thousand pairs of used children's and baby shoes have been collected and will be prepared to install at an important San Francisco location in early May. Painted on the soles of many of the shoes will be the URL address of the None of Your Business website, where the viewer can interact with the exhibit on the spot. There they will find an artist statement along with BBC video and story hyperlinks, reporting laws, listings for local support organizations, and help-line numbers. The main message is to highlight the tragic cost of silence in dealing with child abuse in our communities, and the ways and means in which to speak-up. 

Crew

Stipends will be paid to a total of twenty-four volunteers. Eight volunteers will work for two days processing the four-thousand shoes. Another sixteen will be coaxed from their warm beds at 3:00 a.m. to work under the cloak of darkness. (Nothing illegal, destructive or damaging is associated with this event.) 

The exhibit will be professionally photographed at sunrise, immediately followed by an extensive media leak via pre-drafted emails, texts and social media. Local and national news organizations, including television, internet and print will be summoned to document this community art event of vital social importance. When the exhibit is ultimately dismantled, the hope is that other communities will recognize its value with requests for installation. 

The final resting place for the little shoes will be Hargeisa, Somaliland/ Somalia, where their life will begin again in a refugee camp.

Thank you for your consideration,

Chris Darst