Fundred Project
2008-2022
S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio is proud to support the Fundred Project by providing production, project management and administrative capacities since 2017. We have partnered with Mel Chin Studio and a number of organizations including MIT CoLab, Hamiltonian Artists, Eaton DC Smart Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum, along with a dream team of many artists, organizers and educators from across the country, to realize the community and policymaker engagement efforts of the Fundred Project.
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Photos by Rick Gardner and Ben Premeaux courtesy of the Fundred Project.
Initiated by artist Mel Chin in 2008, Fundred connects individuals and communities across the country in a collective effort to bring visibility to the widespread threat of lead poisoning. Nearly half a million children and adults across the country have created their own hand-drawn currency, in the form of “Fundred Dollar Bills” to speak to the value of every individual impacted, and the need to invest in solutions.
The Fundreds have been collected via armored truck and through U.S. mail, presented on display in museums and public venues, and activated in the halls of Congress as Fundred artists meet directly with their Congressional Representatives. Over half a million Fundreds, bundled and housed in a specially-designed repository, are now in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum as the Fundred Reserve, a visual representation of the collective call for political action.
An initiative beyond the scope of a singular artist whose creators include hundreds of thousands of children and adults throughout the country, the Fundred Project called for a new form of collaborative imagination and guidance. S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio originated in response to envision and support innovative concepts of creative engagement and develop tools and strategies that will enable organizers to deploy the project in their own self-directed initiatives.
After many years of nationwide Fundred making via grassroots outreach and city-based initiatives, in 2016 the Fundred Project headquarters was established in DC during Mel Chin’s visiting professorship at George Washington University. The Fundred team grew to include GWU students and other artists and organizers from DC and connected with lead advocacy partners to support policy maker education via events and Congressional visits. In spring of 2017, The Fundred Reserve was established–featuring the collection of nearly half a million Fundreds, stacked up on the Fundred Pallet–and displayed to the public at the Corcoran Gallery, directly across from the White House. Throughout the exhibition, the Fundred team hosted numerous tours and events for audiences including students, Fundred artists, lead prevention advocates, and policymakers.
Following the initial Fundred Reserve exhibition, we opened the Fundred Reserve Open Lab in 2017-2018 as a community space to explore offerings and support conversations, public events, and exhibitions for the DC community and to bring together artists and families from Fundred Project’s national network. We hosted Fundred Dollar Hill Day on the 4 year anniversary of the ongoing Flint water crisis, bringing Flint residents and Fundred artists for a press conference and to meet with policymakers.
In 2019, through a partnership with Eaton DC, the Fundred Reserve again went on view in DC, and together we hosted the Fundred Artists of America Program, three multi-day gatherings that brought Fundred artists and lead activists to our nation’s capital for connection, healing and policymaker engagement, including dozens of meetings with legislators.
Working with the Smart Museum of Art from 2020-2021, we developed the Chicago Fundred Initiative: A Bill for IL, primarily focused on Chicago’s South Side. Including a permanent sculptural intervention at Sweet Water Foundation, youth engagement through Fundreds, and connections with organizers and advocates for idea and resource exchange and potential policymaker engagement, the Chicago Fundred Initiative was organized as part of the 2021 citywide exhibition Toward Common Cause, MacArthur Award at 40.
As part of an exhibition of Mel Chin’s artwork at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in 2022, the S.O.U.R.C.E. team advised on the creation of a Fundred Initiative led by the museum.
To fulfill the goal of a permanent home for safekeeping and viewing of the Fundred Reserve, we donating the entire collection of Fundreds to the Brooklyn Museum, where it was exhibited from Spring 2021–Spring 2022 as part of The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience and Resistance in the Art of Our Time.
Working with the Brooklyn Museum, S.O.U.R.C.E. organized a public culminating event for the Fundred Project titled VIVA Brooklyn! On April 2, 2022, celebrating the project’s nearly 15-year history as part of the Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturday program. This gathering and programming brought together significant participants in the project including activists from Grand Rapids, MI; Flint, MI and Chicago to share their experience, strategies, progress and goals for the future.
