ARTS

SURE WE CAN WELCOMES ART FROM LOCAL ARTISTS AND STUDENTS TO MAINTAIN OUR CENTER AS A VIBRANT COMMUNITY SPACE.

Sure We Can is the home to murals and designs developed by local artists. Most of our artwork uses recycled and reclaimed material, and highlights topics of social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

Alex Seel and Lorenzo Masnah are street artists and friends of Sure We Can. They have painted many of the graffiti that beautify our space.

In 2023 and 2024 we hosted concerts with local musicians such as Evolfo and Jairito y La Onda, DJs, and art vendors.

We have partnered with Dzieci Theatre Group, an international experimental theater ensemble dedicated to a search for the “sacred” through the medium of theatre. At our site, they have performed Makbet, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, presented in one of our shipping containers, as well as “A Passion” during the spring and “Fools Mass” during the winter holidays.

We collect crushed cans for the artist Paul Villinski, which he uses to create amazing pieces of upcycled art. The philosophy behind his art is expressed in this quote from him: "I try to practice a 'simple alchemy', attempting to give these cast-off, 'worthless' objects surprising new identities, to infuse their stories with new layers of meaning."

In 2022, we collaborated with Alvaro Catalán de Ocón and his design studio ACdO to present “Closing the PET Plastic Loop,” an exhibition of their PET Lamp and Plastic Rivers projects, featuring upcycled lamps combining diverted PET Plastic with indigenous weaving techniques, as well as beautiful recycled plastic rugs representing rivers around the world most contaminated by plastic pollution. This unique presentation in SWC’s space told the complete story of closed-loop practice, from product consumption to container diversion and processing and finally to the creation of new objects. ACdO donated one of their PET Lamp chandeliers as a permanent installation in the Sure We Can sorting warehouse.

Artolution Van Project

In collaboration with Artolution, an organization that provides collaborative art-making experiences to our participants in vulnerable communities, strengthening mental health, social inclusion and livelihoods, we painted a collaborative community mural on our van, with support from Hispanic Federation.