Art inspires change in the hands of ‘Cup of color’

They set up The Wall Project in 2011 since they were able to see the poverty and the darkness in the Pakistan people’s life. They were told that those citizens have no hope in their country so Rahel & Damon Lam, co-founders of Cup of color, created this initiative to empower people from all around the world living under hopeless circumstances. Their idea was inspired by many reports on the theme of the impact of art in community.

As Sabine Marschall said “a mural art can channel energies of people into the right direction, as it contains the power of reducing violence and crimes, by giving them a constructive environment”. In this way, Cup of color uses art as the instrument to break the barriers, to build bridges to connect people and to heal people’s self-esteem and confidence.

Cup of color collaborates with different and small non-profit organizations to carry out the wall projects. Their actions have had impact in Hong Kong, India, Switzerland, Jordania… and they have painted homes, parks, wall streets…creating a personalized goal in their action painting. Each mural speaks for itself, not only because of the personalized message that has been painted, but also because of the stories that lie behind it. 

Every mural starts with a context and a goal, such as the project 'Walls of home' in which they wanted to customize a house for the inhabitants could call their own. When the team was painting in the street, a woman asked them to paint her house because as she said, everything in her house was broken and had not beauty in it. She wanted to have some flowers in her wall like the ones they were painting and Cup of color decided to paint the flowers because one of their wishes deeply longing in their hearts, is to go to visit family’s home and to paint hopeful image in their walls.

The beauty in their paintings, beyond the message and the story is the collaboration that is generated between the Cup of color team and the inhabitants as many offers to paint with them for a while.

Art inspires

Cup of color also has a second part in their initiative in which they organize a variety of events to provide a window into the work they do. They explain the incredibly challenging and desperate stories they live facing people’s problems through art exhibitions, illustrations, music and talks because as the founders says: “There is only one way of understanding humanity, through connecting to our own brokenness and facing our pain”.