Community Engagement and Mural Arts

Most parking lots are eyesores in a neighborhood. How can we beautify them? We can start painting the walls. Mural Arts Philadelphia is a wonderful program that does that and it is rooted in connecting artists and communities. Last week, I posted about gentrification and artists in neighborhoods. Mural Arts Philadelphia is the antithesis of that. To learn more about their process of selecting and working with the artists and community members, click here.

I really like the work of a particular artist Issac Tin Win Lin whose abstract work centers on strokes, a component of calligraphy and typography. In this colorful iteration on Race Street near Chinatown, the Murals Arts Philadelphia website claims that Lin's strokes resemble Lego pieces that activate this once-bland parking lot, making it playful and pleasant.