(New York) Wearing a straw hat, Lina Montoya talks about the sun. Not the one that hangs over Sunset Park on this scorching July day, but the one that will spring from a new mural that this working-class Brooklyn neighborhood will soon be proud of.
Posted 1:06 a.m. Updated 5:00 a.m.
“The sun was another element that people wanted to see in the mural,” explains the artist, as students and volunteers apply paint to parachute webs that will be assembled and glued to the top of a exterior walls of a public school.
“Because we’re in a neighborhood called Sunset Park. Because people can see the setting sun from the park. It seems a bit redundant, but it’s the reality, ”she adds with a smile.
35-year-old Lina Montoya thus discusses how the Groundswell organization chooses the themes of the murals she has been able to claim paternity for more than 25 years in the five boroughs of New York, and whose number today exceeds 600.
First, students participating in the organization’s flagship program consult with people in the neighborhood to determine what they would like to see in a mural. In the case of Sunset Park, besides the sun, sport, music and language were mentioned.
PHOTO RICHARD HÉTU, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Groundswell collective artist Lina Montoya
“The Hispanic community and the Asian community have greatly contributed to the development of the mural,” says Lina Montoya. We can therefore see elements of these communities. »
Groundswell artists then translate the ideas into images. Ideas that are not always consensual, as demonstrated in the past by murals devoted to gentrification, gun violence or sexual harassment in the street, for example.
“A little utopian”
Then comes the day when the students and volunteers come together to paint the mural according to the artist’s sketch.
“We are transforming communities one mural at a time,” summarizes Lina Montoya, a native of Medellín, Colombia, who has participated in the creation of some fifty murals in New York since 2014, in addition to designing other projects. public art, including many installations on fences.
“It seems a little utopian, a little naive perhaps. But when you go into the community, when you follow the process and see people smiling as they contemplate the result of their contribution, you realize that it is possible to have an impact, even if it is not just a moment. »
PHOTO RICHARD HÉTU, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Mural in progress, Sunset Park, New York
Raúl Ayala, artist and educator from Ecuador, makes the same observation. These days, he’s working with students to create a mural on one of the exterior walls of a supermarket in Bushwick, another Brooklyn neighborhood with a large immigrant population.
The way we work is very transformative, especially for young people. It’s not just about painting. It’s about organizing, communicating in a difficult environment where there are conflicts, where there are many people, where there are many things to take care of. We really have to support each other to be able to create this kind of painting.
Raul Ayala
In New York, Raúl Ayala is not only gaining attention for his contributions to Groundswell projects. In 2020, he was invited to create a work on the famous Bowery Wall, located in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, which had already hosted the greatest street artists, including the late Keith Haring in the early 1980s and the British Banksy in 2018.
The issue of graffiti
“It was a historic site,” he says. Several good street artists had created works there. I was happy to be part of it and to work with a group of very talented young artists. »
Raúl Ayala is, however, one of the last mural painters to have been able to express himself on the Bowery Wall, which stands at the intersection of Houston and Bowery streets. Because the owner of the wall, Goldman Global Arts, suspended last year the program which allowed, each year, a street artist to create a new fresco.
In a post on Instagram, Bowery Wall curator Jessica Goldman justified the hiatus by questioning the increasingly invasive tags. “While we understand and approve of the rebellious nature of street art and graffiti, we consider these attacks to be misguided,” she wrote, posting a supporting photo with the word “HOOLIGAN” in it. spread out in capital letters over the entire surface of the most recent mural.
Raúl Ayala adopts a philosophical attitude towards the decision of the owners of the Bowery Wall.
“I know things are changing in public art,” he says. You never know how long a work will last. You can spend a lot of time working on a piece that will only be around one day, while others will survive for 15 years. It is a conversation with the street. Graffiti is another area of public art that I respect. »
Groundswell’s attitude towards graffiti is more proactive than philosophical. The organization recently started covering its murals with a protective layer that allows graffiti to be easily erased rather than having to painstakingly repaint the tagged parts.
PHOTO RICHARD HÉTU, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
A Groundswell artist in action
But the director of Groundswell assures that it is not a major problem.
A major sponsor
And the participation of each community in the creation of the murals has a lot to do with it, according to him.
“We may not be known everywhere commercially, but we have an effect in every neighborhood we go to,” says José Ortiz, a visual artist who has run Groundswell for two years. “There is a change that results from our relationship with the community. This is what preserves the murals. It’s not just about starting and finishing a project. It’s about the process we go through, the number of conversations, meetings and discussions we have. It’s a true testament to what it means to be socially active in a community. »
In Sunset Park, this approach has earned Groundswell a sponsor with almost unlimited means: Paramount. This conglomerate, which includes the channels CBS, MTV and BET, is in its second collaboration with the organization.
His commitment stems from an initiative launched by BET (Black Entertainment Television) in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, according to Adam Robinson, vice president for social responsibility at Paramount.
“It starts from the idea that we can use the representations and the stories that we tell to eradicate the perpetuation of stereotypes and racism in media content”, he explains on the site of the creation of the new mural of Sunset Park.
Not far from him, Lina Montoya admits to already having a weakness for the mural in the making.
“It is particularly close to my heart because of its scale. We can see it from the BQE,” she says, referring to the elevated freeway that connects the borough of Brooklyn to that of Queens and crosses Sunset Park. “It’s a huge wall. And the fact that a team of 25 young people were employed in the program makes the project even more relevant. »
2023-07-29 05:06:20
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