Fattylympics Street Art Coming Your Way!

Pivo has made some beautiful street art for the Fattylympics and has kindly made the images available for people to download, colour and paste up. Aren't they gorgeous! There will be more images as the Fattylympics draw closer. Please print and share them where you see fit. Pivo says: "The files are A3 but people will be able to scale them down to A4 if that's as large as they can print."

Pivo continues:

"In a nutshell, I make life size portraits of people that are a response to the things that concern me and put them up on the streets where anyone can see them. Although I don't like what the concept of street art has come to stand for, I do still think it's an amazing format to challenge the use of public space and break down the barriers between art in galleries and the places real people inhabit. I founded a collective called the Caged Bird Club to put exhibitions up in the streets and celebrate the work of all the untrained but highly creative folks out there. I also design posters for other artist collectives and am interested in working with activists to develop graphics that help spread the word about things they are working on.

I live in East London but it was my friend in America who brought the Fattylympics to my attention. I was so excited to see that people were doing something that touches on all the things that terrify me about the You Know Whats (body fascism, rigid gender distinctions, gentrification or outright social cleansing, the total repression of dissent, corporate dominance, nationalism, the list unfortunately goes on) and when it was clear that it was being done in a satirical way, I immediately signed myself up.

The participatory and non-competitive nature of the Fattylympics made me think that I should incorporate some of those good DIY values into what I was able to offer. I will be creating a series of posters with all different types of people on them that people can download, colour in their own distinctive style and display in their windows, offices, schools or wherever. My hope is that they can be a way for us to proudly proclaim that actually we'd rather live our lives based on cooperation, community and amateurish fun in East London (kind of like we did back when celebrities didn't live here and nobody gave a shit about us).

Have fun colouring in!"

Pivo Fattylympics Street Art - glasses (.pdf, 414kb)

Pivo Fattylympics Street Art - hat (.pdf, 385kb)

Check out more of Pivo's work here: http://andsomeplyers.blogspot.co.uk

Other stuff we've done

Fattylympics is the latest in a series of related events. Here are links to them, and some minor explanations, to give you a bit more context.

We have produced these events in collectives and by ourselves. What motivates us is to make playful and accessible spaces in real life that engage with fat and queer sensibilities in various ways. Sometimes it's a bit more than that too. Generally, the things we do are not preachy or dry, we do our best to make things that are full of joy, where everyone is welcome. We like making things that are a bit offbeat too.

The Chubsters
This is a semi-fictitious fat queer girl gang, but you don't have to be fat, queer, a girl, or gang-ish to be a part of it. Since it started in 2003, The Chubsters has become a platform for all kinds of things, from film shows to stonemasonry, handicrafts to songs, jumping-ins and other kinds of weirdness. The website is dated, sorry, but there are now over 100 card-carrying badge wearing Chubsters.

Big Bums
Four of us produced a little zine in 2008 with a small grant from NOLOSE, based in the US, "a vibrant community of fat queers and our allies, with a shared commitment to feminist, anti-oppression ideology and action, seeking to end the oppression of fat people!"

The Fat of the Land
In 2009 a group of us organised a fat queer harvest festival in London. Yes, a harvest festival, possibly the dorkiest kind of event on the calendar. We had performances, Morris Dancers, competitions, games, things to eat and buy, and lots of people came to hang out for the afternoon.

Big Bum Jumble
Kay used money from The Fat of the Land to produce a fat jumble sale. The Big Bum Jumble was an amazing day of rummaging, trying things on, and sheer abundance. We produced an unforgettable fashion show too, and had a sympathetic write-up in The Daily Mail, of all places. The money we raised from the Big Bum Jumble is what's paying for the Fattylympics.

The Bad Art Collective
In 2011 Corinna Tomrley and Becky Sanchez hosted a Bad Art workshop at a wonderful feminist activist conference in York. The event was a lot of fun and, together with Francis Ray White, we decided to form the Bad Art Collective and do more of this sort of thing. Bad Art is all about having a go, bodging your way through, being inexpert, and having a laugh. It's great to make things together, epsecially when they come out looking weird and stoopid.

A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline
This is something that I did by myself in 2010-2011, but it involved a lot of other people. It's a community history project that takes a number of different forms, including a workshop, a timeline object, an archival object, paper and digital zines, an object to talk about, an artist's residency, and an academic paper.

We hope to produce more events in the future, but Fattylympics is our most ambitious endeavour to date. Please support us!