NO SEAS WEY COVID-19 MURALS
DESCRIPTION
No Seas Wey —which in english translates to “Don’t be a fool”— is a social responsibility platform addressing the disparities of the Covid-19 pandemic the Hispanic community endured (and continues to endure). Through creative problem-solving, collaboration, and a lot of imagination, we decided to use the cities across the State of Texas as the canvas to deploy our campaign.
ROLE
Co-founder and Creative Direction
BACKGROUND
The Covid-19 pandemic disproportionately hit the Hispanic population of Austin, Texas. They represented 54.5% of hospitalizations, 52% of Covid-19 cases, and 50% of deaths while representing 34.3% of the population.
Weekly Hospitalizations by Race — MSA, March 11-June 7
THE CHALLENGE
How do we change their perception that wearing a mask is not dumb, but an act of social responsibility? At the same time, convey the sentiment that there is something they can do to prevent them from getting the disease and/or passing it onto others? How do we create the habit of being responsible about your health and that of others; in a culture that wings the day-to-day and where bad things only happen to others?
THE IDEA
We decided to create murals, but we did not stopped there. Through the usage of QR codes, we turned these idle city walls into education centers. Each mural, with a QR code allowed users to be redirected to a website where they can find important Covid-19 related information in Spanish — testing facilities, ways of protecting against the virus, infections report, among others.
We recruited local artists from Texas to help us paint murals across the city of Austin. Artists were given full liberty to come up with their design; as a consequence, each mural is a different representation of the artist’s understanding of the unique time the world was facing — the Covid-19 Pandemic.
MURAL 1
Location: 2701 E. MLK Blvd, Austin, TX
Artist: Bayo
MURAL 2
Location: 901 Tillery, Austin, TX
Artist: Uloang
MURAL 3
Location: 2300 E. Cesar Chavez street, Austin, TX
Artist: Carmen Rangel
MURAL 4
Location: 614 East Oltorf, Austin, TX
Artist: Drib
MURAL 5
Location: Downtown. El Paso, TX
Artist: Cimi
MURAL 6
Location: Edinburg, TX (Rio Grande Valley)
Artist: Pop_Culture
SOCIAL MEDIA
The goal of social media posts was to inform and educate. Data regarding hospitalizations, infection rate, confirmed cases among many other was collected and transformed into visually appealing bites of information. From an educational standpoint, we created a series of scenarios in which people could or couldn't be a wey/fool.
NON-TRADIONAL MEDIA
Stickers and pins were handed out to passerbyers to help promote the No Seas Wey initiative.
