Mural Arts Next Steps: Creating a Narrative of Community Art to Preserve Cultural History, Locally and Beyond

Abstract

As we move into our next decade, we at Mural Arts have become increasingly proactive about challenging ourselves to do work that is both more innovative and collaborative. Increasingly we want to do our part to advance the ever-evolving conversation about muralism in the 21^st Century—what will it look like and how will it remain consistent with our mission and vision to uplift the communities we serve?

As we have continued to move forward and take on new challenges, we are mindful of looking back at the same time. As important as it is to embrace new ways of looking at our work, it is imperative we remember where we came from, the work we have done around the city, and the stories told so beautifully by these large-scale works of art. It is just as important for us to not just talk about our older work, but to preserve it and interpret it. We want to curate and share it. In fact, preservation has become a central theme in conversations about the future of our practice, revealing a growing urgency to conserve, restore and present these wonderful images for many more to see, appreciate and understand. Within the older murals are important stories from which nearly all of our work, and certainly our best work, is born. Talk of aspiration and struggle, the past and the present, upheaval and triumph—these walls reflect the resilience of the human spirit in ways that move and inspire.