MARI GARDNER
  • Home
  • About
    • About Mari
    • Contact
  • Community- Based Art
    • International >
      • Eswatini (Southern Africa) >
        • Tibi Tendlu
        • Unheard Voices
        • Orphanage
      • Botswana >
        • Viewfinder Project
      • Brazil
    • Community Based Public Art
    • Sculpture
    • Room Transformations
    • Installations >
      • African Refugee Youth: A Self Portrait
      • Unheard Voices (Timbutini)
    • Video >
      • Documentary
      • Public Service Announcements
  • Public Art
    • Clay Center for Art and Science, Charleston, West Virginia
    • Anne's Flats, Olympia, Washington
    • American Embassy, Eswatini, Southern Africa
    • American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland >
      • Aurora Borealis
      • Sunset and Daybreak Wing
      • Day to Fade
    • Baltimore Convention Center Hilton Hotel, Baltimore, Maryland
    • Glazer Children's Museum, Tampa, Florida
    • OHL Orthodontists, Dover, Delaware
  • Fine Art
    • Sculpture >
      • Redemptive Meditation
      • Portrait of a City Series
      • Nana I Ke Kumu Series
      • On Man and Nature Series
      • African Refugee Youth: A Self Portrait
    • Photography >
      • Dignified Faces
      • Tibi Tendlu
      • Unbreakable
    • Installation >
      • Samsara
      • Nana I Ke Kumu (Look to the Source)
      • Hut
      • Teen Dreams
    • Decorative Works
  • Video
    • Documentary
    • Small Jobs

Tibi Tendlu, The Dirt that Binds

​2015-2016 Swaziland, Southern Africa
Portraits made in conjunction with Swazi women who participated in the Tibi Tendlu, Dirt That Binds Program. See here for more information.

Unbreakable
Swaziland, 2009

In 2009, I was blessed with the opportunity to be a visiting artist in Swaziland, Africa, through the United States Embassy.  I led mask workshops in an orphanage (consisting mostly of children orphaned due to their parents dying of AIDS) and photography/audio workshops with members of an HIV support group in the rural village of Timbutini. During my stay in the strikingly beautiful, yet poverty stricken, HIV rampant country, I was haunted by the thought that such a prolific beauty could be so demoralized. Despite my deliberations, I did not meet tearful victims; I met pure unbreakable spirits, reminding me that “the same hammer that shatters the glass forges the steel” (Russian Proverb).  I am forever humbled by the beauty, strength and hope that was shared with me.  

See here for more information.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
    • About Mari
    • Contact
  • Community- Based Art
    • International >
      • Eswatini (Southern Africa) >
        • Tibi Tendlu
        • Unheard Voices
        • Orphanage
      • Botswana >
        • Viewfinder Project
      • Brazil
    • Community Based Public Art
    • Sculpture
    • Room Transformations
    • Installations >
      • African Refugee Youth: A Self Portrait
      • Unheard Voices (Timbutini)
    • Video >
      • Documentary
      • Public Service Announcements
  • Public Art
    • Clay Center for Art and Science, Charleston, West Virginia
    • Anne's Flats, Olympia, Washington
    • American Embassy, Eswatini, Southern Africa
    • American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland >
      • Aurora Borealis
      • Sunset and Daybreak Wing
      • Day to Fade
    • Baltimore Convention Center Hilton Hotel, Baltimore, Maryland
    • Glazer Children's Museum, Tampa, Florida
    • OHL Orthodontists, Dover, Delaware
  • Fine Art
    • Sculpture >
      • Redemptive Meditation
      • Portrait of a City Series
      • Nana I Ke Kumu Series
      • On Man and Nature Series
      • African Refugee Youth: A Self Portrait
    • Photography >
      • Dignified Faces
      • Tibi Tendlu
      • Unbreakable
    • Installation >
      • Samsara
      • Nana I Ke Kumu (Look to the Source)
      • Hut
      • Teen Dreams
    • Decorative Works
  • Video
    • Documentary
    • Small Jobs