Street Art Workers
“We are taking back our cities and towns from the businessmen, cops and politicians who define public space for their own benefit. As a volunteer-run group, we make street art for political campaigns and post each other’s work across North America.“
Street Art Workers (SAW) was a US-based mail art exchange project started by Claude Moller and Josh MacPhee in the early 2000s. Each year, various participants would collaborate loosely on a theme, creating works-in-multiple which were then sent to a central distribution house, collated into sets, and mailed back out to participating artists. Each artist would then have a pack of themed posters, stickers, and stencils with which to strike out on the walls of their own cities.
In 2010 SAW produced it’s final, and most ambitious project: Land & Globalization. Printed as a newspaper-style set of broadsheets, this collection of 25 posters represented artists from 10 different countries and over 20 different cities. The designs in Land & Globalization illustrate specific struggles in countries like Brazil and the United States, and they also tackle international issues around poverty and gentrification. Along with a strong critique of imperialism, the posters show how communities throughout the world are resisting corporate power for a more just and sustainable world.
Many early SAW participants are now members of Justseeds.
