Apartial is an Dublin-based platform with a mission to bring creativity to everyone and encourage people to join the creative community by hosting projects. With this in mind they recently organized The Liberia Project together with a team of local surfers in West Africa.
After enduring an 11-year civil war and the recent Ebola crisis, the Liberian people needed a new start, a chance to begin a new chapter. The Apartial team thought of a project with a premise that art could be the catalyst to help transform their lives. The idea was to attempt to create pieces designed by such artists as Maser, Faile, 1010, Conor Harrington, Martin Whatson, Ted Pim or Mark Jenkins, in order to develop skills towards careers in the creative sector. While doing so, the locals were breathing new life to the structures that stood as daily reminders of the war. The citizens of the small town of Robertsport quickly got involved in the project – from creatives transforming their town and pushing towards new opportunities, to bystanders sharing stories and seeing their surroundings in a whole new light. The result are vibrant pieces in jaw-dropping scenery, and an army of individuals who got the chance to try something new and previously unseen in their hometown or home country. This pioneering project was captured by a young local surfer Alphanso Appelton and was edited by Motherland showing a glimpse of what happened when a small group of Liberian surfers collaborated with some of the world’s best artists.
