Imagine a city left to ruin. Its walls a hollow testament to the life that once lived and thrived upon its streets. Its buildings are covered in the last frantic words and images of the street artists and graffiti makers who stood as the final recorders of its fate. You are its final tourist. You alone walk its streets and see its messages. You are the final witness to the troubles the people of this city faced. Only you can set aside the war, the hate, the savagery and see the deeper meanings left here. Do you do so? Or do you turn your back and walk away to find your way back to the sunshine streets of your dreams, far from reality?
This is Dystopia.
Background
The Dystopia Project was created by New Orleans artist/activist Grey Cross to represent a city destroyed. A city where its last inhabitants were the street and graffiti artists, who left behind the last memories of their world.
Each building is an individual sculpture, crafted to look like an urban ruin filled with street art. Every building is dedicated to a different theme of the troubles and tribulations of our current world situation.
When complete the project will have 30+ urban ruins which viewers can walk among. Some of the larger towers stand 7-10 feet tall and contain 3-20 pieces of miniature street art within them. They are not always easy to see. The sculptures were designed to make people stop and look closely at each piece. The artist wants the viewer to look into the windows and through holes in the facades and take in the whole message of each building.
In addition to the individual buildings there will also be accessory pieces created, including roads, walls and the shattered ephemera of a dead city.
First Steps
Currently Grey Cross Studios is creating the first ten buildings while also putting together a team of volunteer associate artists who will be helping in the development of the project and lending their own unique ideas to the project. Once the first five buildings are complete, they will begin to go on short tours around the greater New Orleans area to scheduled events where artists from around the community who are not directly related to project can also add their unique marks to the sculptures.
What Happens Then?
Then it is our desire to take the project out on tour around the country to galleries and art events. Through the advice and cooperation of other Art Activists around the world we would like to make this a major touring project and continue adding sculptures as long as we find there is a need to discuss a particular subject.
Complimentary Projects
Within the base concept explained above there are also other concepts being explored. These include an exploration of urban decay as an art form, a surrealism art/photography series and the cooperation of body models who will be photographed with the sculptures.
Because this is an open source project, we encourage other artists and creatives to bring their ideas to the table to suggest other ideas that can become offshoots from the original project.
Participation
Participation is voluntary. No creative is asked to do anything that is outside of their skill sets, but we hope that artists will also develop new skills from the creation of the sculptures and working in what we term and "immersive art environment".
If you would like to participate either remotely or in the New Orleans area or you are an organization, event or business who would like to be a host site for project, please contact us at:
We'd love to speak with you and have you see whats been created so far.
UPDATE 06-27-18
Street Art Added to the Refugee Tower
This piece is entitled "The Cruelty of Man" and is made of mortar on broken slate tile. It is the centerpiece street art for the back side of the Refugee Tower.
Please check back on this page for additional information and updates to the project as they become available.
UPDATE 07-10-18
A great interview today with fellow creative and musician Reilly Musgrave. Besides lending his creativity to some of the sculptures he is also already hard at work trying to create a soundtrack that accompanies the sculptures when they are on tour. The potential of having ambient sounds and rhythms playing in the background lends a great addition to creating emotions around the viewing of the sculptures.
Check out some of Reilly's other work at these links!
Hotless Drive
Asumi
PROJECT PHOTO ALBUM
Throughout the development of the early stages of the project we've been photographing and putting together some pretty awesome images. They will only become better as we proceed!
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