ARTS & CULTURE
Tuesday, November 10, 2015 9
The Value of Public Art
Philadelphia’s Transformative Mural Arts Program
kathleen killin › arts & culture editor
F
or thousa nds of years, humanity has
expressed themselves by creating imagery
on walls, whether on caves, under bridges,
or the sides of buildings. Graffiti ranges
from simple written words, to elaborate paintings.
Opinions remain varied on what is graffiti and what
is art, with a struggle between the two. Before the
explosion of street artists and popularity of the
likes of Banksy, Shepard Fairy, King Robbo, graffiti
was linked to gangs and crime. Neighbourhoods
were littered with unreadable ‘tags’ and imagery
that usually have a meaning of marking territory.
Similarly, although more easily decipherable, large
paintings on the sides of buildings have been used for
neighbourhood residents to identify and distinguish
themselves from others.
In Dr. Richard Florida’s The Creative Class, there
is a comparison of the health of urban landscape to
that of a human body; the city will only succeed in
remaining healthy when all aspects of the city, like a
body’s organs, work simultaneously and cohesively.
An important organ in the body of the city is public
artwork; either funded by the public purse, or
created/donated by citizens and corporations.
In traditional terms, one can define public art as
any artworks that fall into the public sphere and
are consumed by the general populace. However,
beneath the surface of the city square installations
or community sculptures, is an entirely different
essence of public art with a different social purpose.
The subculture of mural art is valued highly as a
tool that deters crime creating a sense of identity
for the individual, as well as a device to influence
political awareness that can be used to promote
political defiance and create public uproar. Whether
it is through sculptures in town squares, street
art (formerly known as graffiti) across abandoned
walls, mosaics on the tube or mural projects in
low-income neighbourhoods, public art does more
than beautifying the city; it provides a platform for
neighbourhood cohesion. Simon Hattestone of The
Guardian wrote “When I do come across [public
art], surreptitiously peeping out of an alley or boldly
emblazoned on a wall, I find it hard to contain myself.
They feel personal, as if they are just for me, and they
feel public as if they are a gift for everyone. They make
me smile and feel optimistic about the possibilities
of shared dreams and common ownership.” Mural
arts can further be subdivided into different
streams – transformative murals, neighbourhood
identification, and politically driven street art. Over
the next few issues I will explore these streams in
greater depth.
During a recent visit to Philadelphia, I was in awe
of the amount of murals throughout the city. After
doing a bit of research, I found that Philadelphia
is home to the world’s largest collection of outdoor public art due to the Mural Arts Program. This
program was established in 1984 as part of the
Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network in an effort to
eradicate the graffiti crisis. With over 3000 murals
city wide, the mission of the Mural Arts Program is
to utilize talent within the city, specifically lowincome communities, and create alternative projects
for former graffiti artists to channel their creativity
in a positive way. In transforming communities from
within, the Mural Arts Program not only changes the
civic and cultural landscape of the city, but also most
importantly contributes to grass-roots not-for-profit
revitalization of the city’s most underserved communities. By employing over 250 artists, on average two million USD is redirected back into the local
community each year, with nearly twenty thousand
people across the city taking part in their initiatives. The program is subdivided into specific projects
that include: Arts Education for Youth; Community
Murals and Special Projects that works within the
various neighbourhoods and create large-scale artworks; Restorative Justice for inmates, those reentering society and victims of violence; and Porch
Light for those struggling with mental illness, trauma
and addiction. The Restorative Justice Program provides weekly instruction to over 300 inmates and
200 juveniles every year; it gives them an opportunity to learn new skills to make a positive contribution to their communities, in an attempt to repair the
prior harm they may have caused. The Porch Light
Program creates murals that focus on mental health
and substance abuse, and in the past two years has
enrolled 374 participants and over 3000 community
members.
October 2015 has been a big month for the Mural
Arts Program with the streets and buildings of
Philadelphia being the canvas for the Open Source
project. Contemporary a 'F