In honor of our upcoming exchange program Community Engagement through the Arts: American Muralists, here are some murals around the world inspiring and beautifying neighborhoods.
1) What started as a project by the artist collective A’shop evolved into a community effort. After neighbors realized the wall wasn’t an ad, but a piece of art, they came to visit the site daily. The mural is called “Our Lady of Grace,” after the neighborhood in which it is located, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. It was commissioned by the City of Montreal to bring some color to a gray part of town.
2) This South Side Chicago Mural “Wall of Respect,” painted in 1967, features images of over 50 black leaders, reflecting the influence of the Black Power movement at the time.
3) “The Color Of Your Voice” mural in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania came from a partnership between Mural Arts, Project HOME, the Hank Gathers Rec Center and the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual DisAbility Services. The colors on the right correspond to the letters in the poem on the left. The poem, written by the community, represents strength, resilience and the healing power of art.
4) While the vegetables in this mural appear to be falling to their death, this piece in Ordes, Spain was painted by the artist Blu as a plea for vegetarianism.
If you want to do this kind of work, apply here to our program by April 6, 2014.
For more inspiring community murals, check out the MuralArts program in Philadelphia.
This program is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
