ONE Condoms taps local urban artist community to promote national HIV prevention campaign
NEW YORK— ONE Condoms on Thursday announced the launch of a national HIV prevention campaign that features a coalition of visual artists, musicians, celebrities and public health agencies.
#LustforLife (onecondoms.com/lustforlife) aims to help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in America's urban communities, where 70% of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the United States occur each year. The campaign brought together 22 graffiti and street artists who created unique works of art on full-sized STOP signs with designs promoting safer sex. The collection was curated by Billi Kid, a contemporary artist, designer and curator whose aesthetic mixes graffiti and street art sensibilities with sophisticated nods to high art, fashion and design. The campaign kicks off with a launch event for an exhibit featuring the works of art at the Urban Outfitters store in New York City's Herald Square on Friday, Feb. 6 at 6 p.m.
Starting with World AIDS Day (Dec. 1, 2014), the 22 designs were revealed in a social media campaign during the month of December. In partnership with Paddle8, the #LustforLife works of art will be sold in an online public auction from Feb. 6-20, in tandem with National Condom Week (Feb. 14-21, 2015), with proceeds to benefit Lifebeat, Music Fights HIV/AIDS. Lifebeat is the leading national non-profit dedicated to educating America's youth about HIV/AIDS prevention. For 22 years, Lifebeat has been on the front lines distributing safe-sex materials to millions of at-risk youth at concert venues, music festivals and clubs throughout U.S.
In the past year, Lifebeat performed outreach on many national tours including Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Sam Smith, Mad Decent Block Party Tour, Fall Out Boy, CHVRCHES, and Romeo Santos, and major music festivals including South by Southwest, Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival and Electric Zoo.
"ONE's mission is to increase condom use by creating products and programs that make it easier to learn about, talk about and practice safer sex," stated Davin Wedel, president of Global Protection Corp., parent company of ONE. "The #LustforLife campaign sends a powerful message about the importance of safer sex to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS in America's urban communities. We created the campaign to bring all of us — artists, health activists, community leaders and consumers — together to shine a national spotlight on this issue."
Wedel noted that the launch in New York will be followed by similar campaigns in other major urban communities, each with its own unique expression of unity among local artists, public figures and health organizations.
ONE is producing #LustforLife condom wrappers featuring eight of the STOP sign designs and will distribute millions of them through public health organizations nationwide. The company also will introduce retail 12-packs and other products showcasing the designs and will donate a portion of sales to urban outreach programs.