Walter Cruz, Mount Royal, 2021
Xi Yu, Illustration Practice, 2021
Walter Cruz is a creative collaborator exploring the intersections of art, design and architecture to better understand how Black bodies activate and take up space.
Xi Yu is an earth based dreamer who creates light hearted and interactive arts reflecting on the culture and social issues to engage with people.
Project Overview
Sweat, adrenaline, crowds, noise, hand-made signs and expectation. This is not a summary of a football game or a soccer competition. Instead, these are elements you’ll find in mass protests situations. All around the world citizens are assembling and standing up for their rights. In many cases this means coming in direct contact with the authorities and their attempts to subdue protests. That’s where we come in. Xi and Walter’s project focuses on developing a protective garment to protect protestors from harmful chemicals like tear gas in order for the wearers to get out of dangerous situations safely.
Dan Mayers Photography
Process
Working on this project together has taken us down paths we both agree we never saw coming.
Between exploring swatch after swatch of fabrics and deciding to stick to the most economical
fabric we could find that fit our standard. To hours of testing ways to apply heat to layers of
plastic in a way that would make it stronger than it was before and learning the basics to making
a protective mask from household items. All of this while simultaneously exploring ways to to
fold our creation in to a neat and unassuming package. It has been quite the journey.