Washington - Mural art, popularized in Mexico by artists such as Diego Rivera, is public property, accessible to everyone, that can highlight community issues. In Arroyo del Indio, a neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez, for example, murals testify to the resilience of a community devastated by a flood in July 2006.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Washington — Mural art, popularized in Mexico by artists such as Diego Rivera, is public property, accessible to everyone, that can highlight community issues. In Arroyo del Indio, a neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez, for example, murals testify to the resilience of a community devastated by a flood in July 2006.
In 2009, the U.S. Consulate in Juarez partnered with the Chihuahua Business Foundation ( FECHAC ) to bring Michelle Ortiz and Julia Lopez, artists from a Philadelphia-based arts group called Las Gallas, to use murals to address another issue: violence in the community. Ortiz and Lopez worked closely with nearly 80 artists, community members and even gangs, encouraging them to add their own ideas to the murals promoting nonviolence that they painted on the wall of a public park and canal.
Karla Tarango, director of FECHAC in Ciudad Juarez, said the mural project had a strong impact on the community. “We began to see how, through the project, there was collaboration between gangs or groups who had constantly butted heads.”
Art, she said, is a medium for social change because it has the capability of empowering people to change their surroundings and take ownership of their roles in the process. “A young person who is active in art is one who is more autonomous, more independent; he is a more complete citizen because he can create and generate something.”
Accessibility to mural art by all is an important factor, said David Flores, a local muralist in Juarez. “Young people don’t need a lot of money to do murals. They just need a can of paint, a great idea, a message to express — and that’s it.”
Tarango said the power of the mural project has helped young locals understand that “they are the protagonists of the story they want to write for the future.” Indeed, almost a year later, the community youth continue to work together to maintain the murals they helped paint and have reproduced the techniques with the creation of more murals.
Local artists Héctor Sabino and Alejandro Castillo told the Juarez newspaper El Diario that the murals are testaments to the struggles of the community, and that they also demonstrate hope for the future. One mural reads, “We have the strength to change,” illustrating the empowerment of the people born into one of the most disadvantaged areas of a conflict-ridden city.
The true power of mural art, however, is in the collaborative efforts of the locals to improve their community and show pride in their public property. “They have seen how they have the power to change their surroundings,” Tarango said.
( This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov )
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