muralismo @ festival of world cultures

dublin | arts and media | opinion/analysis

Saturday August 28, 2004 13:19

by dunk

fuspey at yahoo dot co dot uk

Park Road Saturday 28th & Sunday 29th · 12pm - 6.00pm · family, all ages
FREE

muralismo is happening this weekend, a giant mural will be painted alongside peoples park dun laoighre as part of festival

some indymedia people are trying to do "communication action"; hopefully this will happen
petit cinema, imc boards, printflares, take pictures and hopefully make little documentary with nicaragua team FUNARTE?

muralismo

Over the Festival of world cultures this weekend Park Road, alongside the People's Park, will transform from a tranquil residential thoroughfare to a dazzling multi-coloured street-mural project created by a group of young Nicaraguan mural-painters, a collective called FURNATE. Deriving its theme from local community groups, the Muralismo team will paint an impressive mural stretching the length of the road . This exciting and colourful project is a joint venture between the Festival of World Cultures, Mayfield Community Arts Centre in Cork and their South American partners FURNATE, who will travel from Nicaragua for this event.

Murals play an important role in the life of Nicaragua. There are a number of reasons for this but many are to be found in the violent history that the country has suffered over the past 30 years. Murals first became a strong element of life in parts of Nicaragua in 1987. They were linked to the Sandinistas and were initially painted by people as political statements from a community that had been racked by poverty and violence.

The “Muralismo” Project which began in 1988 and is based in the town of Estelí is an attempt to help young people look at their realities and then to ask how these realities could be changed and transformed. Muralismo run workshops which try to restore young people’s self-esteem but also help them to look at the society in which they live and to imagine what they want for their futures. Most of the children come form the barrios (shanty towns) of Estelí and include a number of street children, child labourers and disabled children. The issues and beliefs of the children of Estelí are now to be seen all over the walls of the town. The murals depict the dreams of a new Nicaragua as well as being a living testimony to the development and growth of the children.

links:
http://www.dlrcoco.ie/festivalofworldcultures/muralismo.htm
http://www.materdei.ie/logos/murals.doc

this relates to healthier more playful urban systems, there is a very interesting discussion going on here about that, if you would care to participate
"be realistic, demand the impossible"
http://easa.antville.org/stories/887874/#896471