Tracey Moberly facts for kids

Tracey Moberly (born Tracey Karen Wood, 1964) is an artist, writer, and radio host. She was also a co-owner of the Foundry in London. Tracey Moberly creates a lot of art and is famous for her work with mobile phone text messages. Her book Text Me Up! is based on these messages. Many people describe Moberly's art as having a strong social or political message.

About Tracey Moberly's Art Journey

Tracey Moberly studied Art and Design at Newport College of Art (now the University of South Wales). She earned a top degree in 1985. Later, in 1996, she got her master's degree in Art as Environment from Manchester Metropolitan University. She also taught there during the 1990s. Since 2001, she has lived and worked in East London.

Moberly uses many different materials in her art. These include bricks, glass, thread, and fabric. She has even led workshops at the Natural History Museum. In these workshops, she taught people how to spin and dye materials using natural things like vegetables.

Her work with spinning and dyeing led to a special project. She worked with comedian Shazia Mirza on a TV show. For this show, Tracey spun human hair and made over 80 pieces of clothing from it. Tracey has also made poetry from bricks. She has even created sculpted bricks that are part of real buildings. She also works with steel, iron, and glass.

Art for Change: Activist Art

Tracey Moberly often uses her art to support important causes. Her artwork has been chosen to highlight difficult social issues. Sometimes her art helps to spread awareness indirectly. Other times, she uses her art to fight directly for a cause. This is known as using art as activism.

Tracey Moberly and comedian Mark Thomas started a company called McDemos. It's a "protest solutions company." It helps people who are too busy to protest themselves. One of their first projects was to cover up street advertisements in Manchester. McDemos has also been involved in a campaign to change a British law called SOCPA (Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005). They turned protesting into an art form near the Houses of Parliament. Moberly has also led workshops at Tate Britain about "Art as Protest." She has given talks on this topic at universities too.

Coca-Cola's Nazi Adverts Exhibition

Tracey Moberly and Mark Thomas put together an art show. They invited artists to imagine what Coca-Cola's ads might have looked like during the Nazi era. This was because Coca-Cola GmbH (Germany) worked with the Nazis. The company advertised in Nazi newspapers and helped the regime financially. They opened bottling plants in areas the Nazis had taken over. In 1941, when they couldn't get syrup from America, they made a new drink. This drink, created for the Nazi market, was Fanta.

The exhibition included hundreds of artworks. It was first shown in London in 2004. Since then, it has traveled to many countries. These include Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Russia. Coca-Cola says that the facts in the exhibition are not true. However, the company has not taken any action against Moberly and Thomas.

Text Me Up!: Art from Messages

Tracey Moberly has saved every text message she has received since 1999. She uses these messages to create art shows and projects. The first show, Text-Me-Up!, was in Manchester in 2000.

Then came Text-Me-Up-Too! in London in 2001. For this show, her text messages were printed on long scrolls. This created an art installation that looked like a temple. Text-Me-Up-3! (2001) and T4XT-M4-UP-MOR4... (2002) involved sending balloons into the sky. Random text messages were attached to these balloons.

Text-Me-Up-Five! included four other artists. In this show, Tracey combined new text message technology with old-fashioned embroidery. The show opened in London in 2006. It then moved to other galleries.

Her collection of text messages is also the topic of her book, Text-Me-Up!, published in 2011. The book tells three stories. It includes old text messages, current text conversations, and parts of Tracey's own life story. It covers eleven years of her life in London. The book also talks about her work with famous people. These include Alabama 3, Banksy, Tony Benn, Pete Doherty, and Howard Marks.

Tweet Me Up!: Social Media Art

On August 27, 2012, Moberly created a new artwork at Tate Modern The Tanks. She asked artists for ideas only through social media sites like Facebook. One of the main ideas was how being different can lead to bullying and violence. This event also remembered the life of Sophie Lancaster. Sophie died in 2007 after she and her boyfriend were attacked.

See also

• Criticism of Coca-Cola - Nazi Germany and World War II
• SMS text messages
• Protest art