Creating a mural is a public performance. Of course, the finished artwork is a permanent installation, but the process of transforming a space in the middle of daily street life becomes performance art in its own right.
Watching @BigeyesWorld work on the Norwood mural, you realize this type of project is largely performance art. The community is spectators enjoying the show as the piece progresses. pic.twitter.com/MNa82Ao7li— Urban Residue (@urbanresidue) September 2, 2018
East 207th Street and Bainbridge Avenue has always been an unremarkable and rather dirty corner. The side of the bodega is a blank wall that consistently attracted juvenile tagging, which local anti-graffiti group Norwood Against Graffiti (NAG) routinely rolled over with fresh paint, seemingly refreshing the canvas for the next set of tags. Meanwhile, the sidewalk and tree pits had long accumulated trash. A couple local characters spend their afternoons sitting on the corner with a drink in hand. It was the leftover backside of a small commercial building, a little place that had mostly been abandoned for decades. It was a place that people shuffled through, dulled by the mundane ugliness.
While most people were resigned to walking by the griminess on this corner as an immutable fact of life, something they had effectively tuned out, Elisabeth von Uhl saw the possibility of creating a place that had more to contribute to the community. It took a few years of effort and a couple false starts, but with some perseverance and persuasion, she eventually partnered with ArtBridge and secured funding from Councilmember Andrew Cohen. ArtBridge brought in artist Laura Alvarez who designed and painted the mural.
Through all phases of the project, neighbors stopped by to watch the work and offer their thanks. Some stayed a while to watch Laura, Lis and their supporting cast (including volunteers who also gave the tree pits a deep cleaning). Others checked back periodically, eagerly looking at the progress throughout the three days it took to complete the mural. The sketch of the design that was taped up at the site was invaluable not only to describe the project, it acted almost as a program for the performance.
Then, after three broiling hot days of hard work, the mural was completed. Now it is the stage set for the drama of neighborhood residents' daily lives, all brightened a bit every time they pass this corner.
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