Armbruster Manufacturing Co. | Base Paint Tents for Haiti Classrooms

Disaster Relief Tents: Base Tent Gift of Painted Tents for the Children of Haiti. Armbruster tents painted by artists and donated as classrooms following the Earthquake in Haiti.

Base Paint Tents for Haiti Classrooms

Posted on December 20, 2010

in Disaster Relief and Emergency Shelters

“A gift of painted tents… Each tent, a mobile port for learning – BASE PAINT is a utilitarian installation of goodwill for the children of Port-au-Prince from the artists of the world, playing literally on the concept of base paint: A core to build upon, an educational facility pigmented with the components of creativity, scholarship and care.

Base – the home, the core, the classroom, schooling.

Paint – the pigments, the edifying components of an education to achieve independence.

BASE PAINT – an artist’s metaphor: A portable gift of education for the children.”

Antuan, in collaboration with Fundacion Manos del Sur and Step by Step Foundation, based on an idea by Zelmira Rizo Patron, created a humanitarian art project: an art installation of painted tents, with the children of Haiti in mind. This project is a wonderful collaboration of international artists and organizations to support the education of children and uplift the spirit of the people of Haiti. The selected artists contributed their own perspective of Haiti, using the tents as their canvas.

Armbruster was brought in as the tentmaker for this project. As America’s oldest tentmaker, Armbruster has manufactured tents for the Red Cross and US military during WWI and was the producer of canvas military tents for US soldiers during WWII. An environmentally friendly company, it has developed into one of the highest quality tent and fabric structure manufacturers in the world.

The tents were painted in IRON SIDE, a multi purpose warehouse in Little Haiti, in Miami’s Industrial Business District. The tents were painted by volunteers from the public who worked alongside the artists during the whole process.

The tents were temporarily set up as an art installation in Miami, where the public was able to interact with the project, in a similar way to how the children will interact with the tents in Haiti where they will be used as self contained art spaces, classrooms, meeting rooms and workshops. They were open to the public during Art Basel Week in Miami. Models were then exhibited at several art spaces following Art Basel including the Frost Art Museum, FIU’s Modesto A. Maidique campus, and at Arteamericas.

The tents arrived in Haiti May 2011. They were installed by Antuan and a group of volunteers on the property of L’Athletique d’Haiti in Cite Soleil. The tents then became part of the daily interaction between students and teachers.