Crypto Punkz With Lunch
Crypto Punkz with Lunch is a collection by Empress Trash highlighting the crypto punk form with items handed out by the West Oakland Punks With Lunch (https://www.punkswithlunch.org/) — a houseless harm reduction and outreach organization to help the underserved communities of Oakland. 10% of sales will be donated to West Oakland PWL.
This collection brings forth the question “What can we do with the intense amount of wealth in crypto and NFTs being exchanged to bridge the disparity between socioeconomic classes and tech impoverished communities?”
This collection is a 13 piece limited release made for XoB Cryptovoxels Gallery (cryptobox.space it’s a website) with one edition donated to the gallery for the artist in residency program.
You can view and purchase from the complete collection here.
The following is more in-depth words about the inspiration behind the collection from Empress Trash. Thank you
A few years ago I moved to West Oakland, which was a long-standing dream of mine as a punk kid growing up in the Midwest in the 90’s. I would hear of all the great and wild things happening in the West Coast punk scene and dreamed of the day I would get to be part of it. I’ve had a rough go through my life, but everyday find a little bit more happiness here in this old punk house — Dead Rat Beach.
Coming from poverty and still fighting my way out of it, the “roughness” many outside people find appalling, I’ve found familiar. What other people turn their noses down on, the drug use, houselessness, violence, constant human struggle, I see as real and is what I know and understand in the world. I’m never going to profess a love for others suffering, I try every day in my way to alleviate it but I do love the compassion that is born from these situations.
One of the many compassion cultivators I’ve had a blessing to interact with is West Oakland Punks with Lunch. Punks with Lunch (PWL for short) is a harm reduction outreach program done every week right around the corner of my house in West Oakland. They do food distribution, needle exchange and bring health and other services to the houseless encampments in the area. All of it is lead with non-judgment and compassion.
For a while, I was active with working distribution weekly, but my mental health issues have made it hard for me to find the emotional bandwidth to go out and do frontline service work. However, the time I spent with PWL and fundraisers we’ve held for them at my home formed me as a person and artist and forged a deeper appreciation for compassion than I had previously. The biggest lesson I took away from my direct time with PWL was while we operate under a system that perpetuates cruelty, the most punk thing we can do is bring kindness and compassion to others.
When I entered the NFT space, as any outsider coming in late Feb 2020, I was amazed at the amount of wealth that was being exchanged. I also was amazed at how many people the space seemed to uplift. Quickly, I got swept into it and uplifted myself, every day growing and learning something new about myself and the world. I’m still not a millionaire by any means, each day I have to work hard to keep myself going and others, and each day I find a little more success.
While NFT and Crypto have helped many — a reality for a good portion of artists is it’s disheartening to see so much money being exchanged for certain successful projects when they themselves struggle to gain any visibility or sales. The same struggle I see emulated in my neighborhood — for one example with a tent encampment right in front of new luxury condo complex. The wealth disparity is enormous and unfortunately, those who need access to all the benefits crypto and nfts has to offer have the hardest time accessing it with technology, internet or even electricity being a scarcity RIGHT HERE IN THE BAY AREA — the center of a lot of technology advancements and wealth.
Bringing this up, I’m not trying to diminish or dismiss any single project or person’s success, more so highlighting the reality countless face. When climbing out of poverty not internalizing in the moment one’s lack of success as “something is wrong with you personally” when so many societal mechanisms don’t allow easy success compared to others around them is a hard feat to accomplish. This is yet another wall many of us have to try to climb over on top of everything else we are dealing with — no insurance, unstable housing, lack of safety nets, no consistent income, etc.. It’s not getting better either, each day the houseless encampments grow larger and larger. This doesn’t account for all the people managing to stay housed by the skin of their teeth by working multiple jobs, supporting a family AND also trying to make it with a side hustle.
All of these thoughts and observations combined together were my inspiration for choosing to do a Crypto Punks derivative for this collection — Crypto Punkz with Lunch. I see in my world the images of Punks being traded for loads of money, while punks on the streets are working tirelessly, with not even close to the same funds Crypto Punks exchange for, to bring much-needed support to people suffering houselessness in my neighborhood. My question since I entered the NFT space is how can we bridge this gap to alleviate suffering to those who are experiencing it?
I don’t have a good answer for that question, but I keep asking it and making art about it in hopes it sparks someone who is smarter than me and has more resources to think and implement a solution. I see and give a lot of mutual aid to support organizations like Punks with Lunch (10% of all sales from the Crypto Punkz with Lunch collection go to West Oakland Punks with Lunch) however it’s hard not to feel like it is a bandaid on a gushing wound in society. We need more, we need widespread change, and we need it now.
