Despite variances in size and goal, each project employed a common approach: • We included a wide range of stakeholders in the conception and creation of every piece. • We worked in partnership with public, non-profit, and for-profit entities, aligning our projects with existing strategies. • We engaged cutting-edge contemporary artists from local, national, and international pools who helped us build our social practice.
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This deeply cooperative approach to creating public art generated social capital, inspired a sense of communal ownership over public space, and empowered people to continue to work for positive change in their communities. In fall 2010, we formalized a new program area focusing on the behavioral health community by creating artistic hubs within clinics. By offering art-making classes and leading community-based art projects, we are helping those in recovery forge positive and supportive relationships with family and community members. In an effort to assess the program’s potential as a replicable model, we are currently working with the Yale School of Medicine to conduct a three-year evaluation of three of these sites, together called The Porch Light Initiative.
Journeys South Different Paths, One Market (Street Market Awnings) Neighbor Ballads (Poetic Broadsides)
©2010 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / J. Meejin Yoon Photo by Kevin Slattery
The outcomes for each of these projects varied from stimulating economic growth along struggling commercial corridors, to inspiring a dialogue and reconciliation in communities plagued by conflict, to giving a voice to important social concerns, such as homelessness, suicide, and the criminal justice system.
©2011 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Michelle Ortiz, Tony Rocco, Frank Sherlock, Erin Ruin Photo by Steve Weinik
Over the past several years we have created between 50 and 100 murals annually in partnership with thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations. These projects ranged in scale from small murals created in collaboration with specific neighborhoods to major civic initiatives that engaged thousands of city residents and garnered attention from a national audience.
Light Drift
Photo by Dan King
FORGING AHEAD
REFLECTING BACK
Mural Arts is currently working to expand the definition of muralism to include 21st century ideas and technologies. Working both on and off the wall, we look forward to introducing our constituents to several new artists and new media over the next several years. Over the next year, for example, internationally celebrated Dutch artist team Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn will continue their 18-month residency with us, during which time they are living and working in a community in North Philadelphia and bringing new public artworks to three of the city’s commercial corridors.
MURALS & SPECIAL PROJECTS World-famous Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn take on the Philly Painting project.
muralarts.org
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