Voices Her’d
Truth Be Sold
2836 Fulton Street, Cypress Hills, New York. 2010
Truth Be Sold was completed by twelve young women led by artists Katie Yamasaki and Menshahat Ebron in partnership with the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation.
The theme of this mural is consumerism. The girls investigated the entire consumer process including extraction, production, market research, advertising, buying, selling, and disposal.
Relating the topic specifically to women, the girls explored how consumption affects women on unique levels.
Much of our consumer goods are made by women of reproductive age, and young women are often targets of the advertising industry. Brand logos and consumer statistics are spread throughout the design.
Inscribed on the mural is a poem written by Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli entitled “Uno No Escoge.” This poem is about choosing consciousness and was selected to speak to the largely Spanish-speaking community of Cypress Hills.
The mural explores how we as a society can move from being one that values things over people to a culture that values people over material possessions.
Learn more at groundswellmural.org
"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (April 4, 1967)
Groundswell Community Mural Project: Voices Her’d
Yamasaki was lead artist for this series for about eight years. Voices Her’d creates a space for young women, in particular young women of color, to be the creators of the visual media about them. The girls in the group, ages 14-20 selected the topic they wanted to address and in many years, spent the year researching the topic and meeting with experts in the field. Then, for seven weeks in the summer, the created a large public mural that communicates their message about that topic.
2004 – I Deal, I Dream, I Do. Park Slope, Brooklyn
2005 – A New Day. Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
2006 – Feels Like Home: An Immigrant Journey. Sunset Park, Brooklyn
2007 – Art Builds Community, Community Creates Social Change. Park Slope, Brooklyn
2008 – Informed, Empowered. Sunset Park, Brooklyn
2009 – Woman Rise. Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
2010 – Truth be Sold. 2836 Fulton Street. Cypress Hills, Brooklyn