Art that Changes the Conversation

Art has the power to change and even lead the conversation, to spark curiosity and fuel real engagement.

But what comes first in a powerful creative project?  The idea and the message? The tools and the talent? Or The Funding, that can make or break it all?

My guest today is Benjamin Von Wong, who creates art on a grand scale that goes beyond awe.

He is an Artist focused on amplifying positive impact. He does that both in the process of how he creates his art, through community, and in the images it produces, finding visual metaphors that stick with people, long after they’ve seen the work.

His mission is to help make positive impact unforgettable. For the last seven years, Von Wong and his team, under the banner of “Unforgettable Labs” have generated over a billion organic views on topics like Ocean Plastics, Fast Fashion, and Electronic Waste for organizations like Dell, Greenpeace, Nike, Starbucks and Kiehl's.

In this opening quote you can hear him wrangle with the dance between art and marketing, and his new mission to find ways to create sustainable funding streams that allow him to create message-shaping art in times and places where the world is gathered to solve some of our most pressing challenges. 

It’s a move that can make his work more deeply sustainable - for himself and for his team. Von Wong’s The Unforgettable Project leverages the collective power of philanthropy to help build broader campaigns around environmentally net-positive innovations worth spotlighting - instead of waiting for corporations that are seeking eyeballs and leveraging their funding for good, he’s building a funding source that actively seeks the next project that needs to go viral.

Some of his notable work includes the Giant Plastic Tap which used trash from the slums of Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya, to demand that corporations #TurnOffThePlasticTap. The Giant Tap was displayed prominently when 193 different countries and 1,500 delegates came together at UNEA 5.2 in 2022 to discuss what was then termed the “Paris Agreement For Plastics” and was eventually used in the United Nations official Plastics Report while raising over $100,000 for the Human Needs Project.

Recently he installed a grand sculpture at the Highline in New York City in collaboration with Kiehl’s to raise awareness and drive adoption of refillable products in the beauty world. Von Wong, along with a large community of volunteers, collected and assembled 2 tons of plastic bottles into a “single-use hydra”, seen by nearly 300-thousand visitors and close to 3 million social impressions for their message of #DontRebuyJustRefill…but as he points out in this conversation, most of the people on the High Line don’t have the leverage to change the system - which is why he seeks to place his epic art in places where the system changers meet.

I learned about Benjamin's work through his wonderful talk at Creative Mornings (a global, IRL community of creatives that hosts monthly talks all around the world). His presentation spoke to some beautiful topics - like the importance of nurturing the conditions of success (like inner narratives and cultivating community) vs chasing success, and the notion of sifting your feelings from reality when it comes to deciding what is enough - personally, financially, and in the work - ie, is my work having enough impact? Von Wong shared the ways in which he’s rewriting his inner narrative to balance his personhood and his purpose or impact. I found the talk profoundly moving and beautiful and