About Moowon
Moowon is an advocacy-focused initiative and a multifold platform that includes online magazine, print publications, creative consultancy for brands and culture sector, and capacity building initiatives engaging governments, NGOs and international organizations. It is the curation and storytelling arm of multidisciplinary design consultancy and studio, Mona Kim Projects. The Moowon project is leveraged by the studio’s networks and background in servicing museums, cultural institutions, and global brands. It is an extension and synthesis of its founder Mona Kim’s three foundational passions:
content-driven museum exhibitions, fashion art direction, and travel.
Moowon magazine is an artistic online publication which engages storytelling as a form of advocacy. It recounts human values through transversal filters of artisanship, at-risk communities, changemakers, nature and ecology. The magazine specializes in presentation of rare stories through high-end photography and film, and writings of great human depth. Its objective is to utilize the art of storytelling to connect the public to hidden gems in the world that merit recognition, and transmit their beauty and value. By doing so, it inspires respect for diverse forms of human expressions and endeavors, creates awareness of preciousness of our natural environments, and fosters higher chance of their preservation. Moowon stories have covered artisans, craft, traditional philosophies, spiritual ecology, and social enterprise efforts in (5 continents & 28 countries)
Mona Kim is the founder of the advocacy-focused initiative and a multifold platform, Moowon, and the curator of the Moowon magazine. As the Creative Director of award-winning multidisciplinary design studio, Mona Kim Projects, she has been conceiving public space experiences and large-scale experiential projects for global brands and cultural institutions. Her museum and exhibition design for the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, World Expo, Museum of Tomorrow (Museu do Amanhã), and UNESCO-sponsored projects, gave her the opportunity to document and be exposed to some of the most distinctive examples of social realities and cultural expressions. On these projects, she had co-curated world issues such as endangered languages, cultural diversity and sustainability. The Moowon project is an extension of this background. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, WWD(Women's Wear Daily), The Creative Review, and in publications by Gestalten and The Art Institute of Chicago.
Photography by BRYAN COPPEDE - Courtesy of Refoundry
Photography by BRYAN COPPEDE - Courtesy of Refoundry
“Back in the 70s
when I was a kid, there were about 350,000 people in prison. Now, there are 2.2 million. The demographics of the incarcerated population at that time looked relatively similar to the demographics of the U.S. in terms of race and class. Now, it's mostly poor people of color, and if you're a black male under 30, you have 20% chance of going to prison.”
Tommy Safian
"We may harbor erroneous beliefs that people coming out of incarceration are deficient and unable to integrate into society.
The US-based nonprofit challenges such assumptions.
Merging craft, commerce, and entrepreneurship, Refoundry's visionary model is a living example that demonstrates how access to basic rights such as respect and opportunities, paves the way
to transform social justice."
Mona Kim
Still frame from video by Upworthy / Courtesy of Refoundry
Crafts
to Transform
Social Justice
Mona KIM
Creative director and founder of MOOWON magazine
Refoundry is a nonprofit startup, based in New York, and in Los Angeles , that helps people coming home from prison to acquire the skills and the knowledge to become leaders and economic engines in their communities. Through craft, commerce, and entrepreneurship, its visionary pioneering model aims to reduce the recidivism rate of the staggering 2.2 million prison population in the United States.
Mona Kim realized an illuminating interview with its founders, Tommy Safian and Cisco Pinedo for MOOWON Magazine
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