Anthony Burrill & ten more artists campaign kindness for British Red Cross
“Kindness will keep us together” is a message to all in this newly launched artivism project which was launched by the British Red Cross as a respond the the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In these uncertain times, though the coronavirus keeps us apart, kindness will keep us together. We’ve collaborated with 11 artists across the UK, including the iconic Anthony Burrill, to share our message of hope with you all” writes the introduction to the campaign which sees all proceeds from the limited-edition prints, mugs, tote bags and other bespoke products going towards the BRC to help people who are most vulnerable right now.
Other artists who have contributed include Rose Blake, Rob Flowers, Yukai Du, Timothy Hunt, Ruby Taylor, Nina Cosford, Bett Norris, Cajsa Holgersson, and Oli Frape.
“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now” once wrote literary iconoclast and beat icon Jack Kerouac (March 12, 1922–October 21, 1969) in a letter he sent in late January of 1957 to his first wife, Edie Kerouac Parker, almost a decade after their marriage had been annulled.
Found in The Portable Jack Kerouac, Kerouac writes on kindness.
“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect.
We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.
The world you see is just a movie in your mind.
Rocks dont see it.
Bless and sit down.
Forgive and forget.
Practice kindness all day to everybody
and you will realize you’re already
in heaven now.
That’s the story.
That’s the message.
Nobody understands it,
nobody listens, they’re
all running around like chickens with heads cut
off. I will try to teach it but it will
be in vain, s’why I’ll
end up in a shack
praying and being
cool and singing
by my woodstove
making pancakes.”
Explore the limited edition of kindness and support British Red Cross and this message of hope to all here.
Tags/ campaign, poster, anthony burrill, supermundane, coronavirus, covid-19, british red cross, kindness
