Fundred Dollar Bill Project
The Fundred Dollar Bill Project is an art project implemented by Mel Chin, and is aimed to connect and represent the voices of children across the United States, with the end goal to propose a funding solution for the lead contamination in the soil of New Orleans, Louisiana. People in the United States and around the globe are invited to draw their own 100 dollar bills and send to collection centers, or schools, for safekeeping. During a nationwide road-trip in an armored truck, the Fundred Dollar Bills will be collected.
The completed Fundred Dollar Bills will be presented to Congress for an even exchange of U.S. dollars to help the remediation of lead in the soil of New Orleans. This funding supports Operation Paydirt, which is the program that, once implemented, will make the lead content in the soil safe for inhabitants of New Orleans and cities affected by lead poisoning-across the United States.
So far nearly half a million people have created and sent in their unique Fundreds.
Armored Truck Tour
Throughout 2010, students at hundreds of schools across the country created Fundred Dollar Bills that were picked up in a specially designed armored truck. As students and educators handed their Fundreds over to truck guards for safekeeping, schools held events that raised awareness of the gravity and persistence of the lead in our environment.
These events gave local elected officials and community organizations a chance to show their support for lead cleanup while giving local press brought the issue to larger audiences.
At every stop the armored truck tour connected the national campaign for lead awareness. Each event around the country not only provided public and impassioned demonstrations against lead poisoning, but brought people together to make connections around this public health issue.
Grand Rapids
In the fall of 2014, the ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan featuring the Fundred Dollar Bill Project, offered an opportunity to raise visibility of local lead issues and invite participation from the tends of thousands of expected visitors.
Visitors to the exhibit sat at bank teller tables and drew their unique Fundreds. Once drawn, their Fundreds were added to hundreds of others on a wall in the exhibit, making their artful demonstrations part of the exhibit for its duration. In addition to creating a public display of action-oriented art, the Grand Rapids initiative brought together local public health specialists, educators, and scientists to talk about the challenges and solutions to lead poisoning in Grand Rapids.
Art Academy in Cincinnati
In 2015, the Art Academy of Cincinnati partnered with the Fundred Dollar Bill Project and the Cincinnati Health Department Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program to create a course that used art and design to address and impact issues of lead contamination in Cincinnati.
With the Fundred Dollar Bill Project as a common starting point and inspiration, students launched group projects to increase awareness of childhood lead poisoning and our ability to put an end to it. Students exhibited their projects at a publicly accessible end of semester block party. Students explored lead poisoning through dance performance and graphic design and created a learning-through-play area. The Health Department shared information about lead, and a public Fundred drawing table provided opportunity for attendees to sit together for conversation and to creatively put their values in action.
Initiatives
Fundred Reserve Open Lab at H-Space, located in DC, is a space to expand the Fundred program by continuing to amplify personal stories, having fact based dialogue about problems in DC, and engaging more people to take purposeful action.
Open Lab continues the presence after the 2017 Fundred Reserve exhibition at The Corcoran. Open Lab programming runs from October through April 2018, with space provided by Hamiltonian Artists, and support from The Kresge Foundation through our partnership with MIT CoLab.
As an extension of Mel Chin's multi-venue exhibition, All Over the Place (April 8 - September 5, 2018), the Fundred Project is on view at the Queens Museum as part of the exhibition.