Artist Shantell Martin Talks Thamesmead, Cultural Appropriation, Puma Collaboration

Artist Shantell Martin Talks Thamesmead, Cultural Appropriation, Puma Collaboration

She also took issue with the cultural appropriation that brands have adopted through their advertising and marketing. “I do believe it’s not cool or fashionable, nor healthy to grow up in an environment that is full of violence, drugs, poor education, untreated mental illness and an abundance of unhealthy examples of bad relationships. All this being said, over the years car companies, movie directors and fashion brands flock to such areas to dip into that which they are not or would wish to be. The appropriation of communities and people stuck in poverty still occurs and this has always frustrated me…the glamorization of communities that lack the common human needs to excel in life only helps to perpetuate the problem,” she wrote. “That’s why when I created this third collection with Puma, I knew it had to be shot there…because it is a part of my story and this collection is inspired by growing up in London on Thamesmead and my youth.”