The Persona Non Grata Art Initiative
Fashion designer Adrian Wu and journalist/activist Stephanie Vizi, founder of The Persona Non Grata Art Initiative, hosted a collaborative event featuring striking imagery by Rachel’s Home orphans and Adrian Wu’s tribal influenced Resort 2012 collection.
An orphanage in Maputsoe, Lesotho, Rachel’s Home, houses children who have lost their families due to HIV/AIDS. Through education it is believed the stigma of HIV/AIDS can be broken, so Rachel’s Home Canada works with the orphanage’s founders to provide the needs of these children with food, education, shelter, and medicine. To help with the cause, We Bake in Heels, Perrier and David’s Tea sponsored this event that raised funds for post-secondary scholarships for the orphans.
To see the photographs taken by children as young as 4 years old is an eye-opener, allowing for different conversation. Through the pictures you see the life these orphans live. You could say these orphans are suffering alone, but then you see their smiling faces in the frames. The children were given disposable camera’s when Stephanie made a trip to their orphanage and these pictures are the result. Adrian Wu’s collection is a tribute to the home of where these children reside. Dramatic dresses designed from tribal printed fabrics seemed to make for a perfect backdrop. The event was well attended with many supporters purchasing photographs right off the studio walls. We loved the idea & motives of The Persona Non Grata Art Initiative. See? Fashion CAN do good for world!
