US: Artists, activists rush to save Black Lives Matter murals

Neir woman could bring mselves to watch video of George Floyd’s final moments, his neck pinned under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee. But as ir city grieved, Leesa Kelly and Kenda Zellner-Smith found much-needed comfort in messs of anguish and hope that appeared on boarded-up windows as residents turned miles of plywood into canvases. w, y’re working to save those murals before y vanish.

“se walls speak,” said Zellner-Smith, who said she was too numb to cry after Floyd’s killing. “y’re expressions of communities. We want se feelings, hopes, calls to action to live on.” Toger, two Black women formed Save Boards to Memorialize Movement, part of a push to preserve ephemeral expressions of anger and pain born of outr over racial injustice that triggered weeks of protests across country. Some artists began painting intricate murals, but many spray-painted raw messs of anguish. Zellner-Smith started with simple pieces.

“Some of se boards aren’t pretty,” she said. “re is collective pain and grief in each board, and each one tells a different aspect of this story. And w we get to tell that story to everyone.” One is word “MAMA” scrawled hastily onto side of an abandoned Walmart. word was among Floyd’s last. w it’s part of a database of protest art called Urban Art Mapping George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art database.

“ art was changing quickly, and se raw, immediate responses were being erased and painted over,” said Todd Lawrence, an associate professor of English at University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and one of database’s creators. “We want people to see full range of responses, complexity, multitude of voices.”

Lawrence and art history professor Hear Shirey were part of a research team alrey documenting street art. When streets of countless cities became temporary galleries after Floyd’s death, y set out to capture art before it disappeared. Although many of 1,600 artworks in crowdsourced database come from Minneapolis, Shirey says y hope to expand to pieces from around world.

“Oppression and racial violence is unfortunately universal, so art is responding to it around world,” she said. Similar work is going on across country as groups take measures to keep art alive.In New York City, Soho Broway Initiative worked with local arts groups to get permission for murals and provide artists with materials. As murals started coming down, organization returned 22 artworks to artists and collected 20 more waiting to be returned.

In Indianapolis, organizer Malina Jeffers is unsure about future of Black Lives Matter street mural stretching across Indiana Avenue. mural is wearing down from traffic, and with winter will come wear dam and swplows. But mural will live on in prints and T-shirts created by local Black artists behind original mural. More than 1,000 shirts have been sold. Vinyl banners representing 24 or murals painted in downtown area are displayed at city's Central Library. “All of us kw mural won’t be re forever,” Jeffers said. “So we all wanted a piece of it to hold onto.”

For Seattle’s Black Lives Matter street mural, Mexican American artist Angelina Villalobos, aka 179, mixed her mor’s ashes into bright green paint she used for letter A. City workers scrubbed mural from asphalt after it began chipping, but one worker collected paint from each letter, which Villalobos plans to keep on her mor’s altar in kitchen. “I’m getting my mom back, but she’s been transformed,” she said. “It’s like a time capsule of that mural experience and all work and thought and pain that went into it.” original artists have repainted mural, planning to touch it up again in five years.

Designers at Seattle architecture and design firm GGLO are using a different approach to preserve protest art by creating an augmented reality art show that allows visitors to use smartphones to view works scattered around city. show includes a digital version of “Right to Remain” poster by local artist Kreau, 3D graffiti horing victims of police brutality and digital tears pouring over Seattle’s skyline.

Gargi Koo, a member of design team, says much of protest art around Seattle was removed. Street art has been erased in many or cities, including Tulsa, Oklahoma, where workers in October removed a Black Lives Matter painting at site of Tulsa Race Massacre where in 1921 a white mob attacked a prosperous African American district, killing an estimated 300 people. Or cities such as Indianapolis and New York City have seen ir Black Lives Matter murals vandalized. “This is our hom to art that is gone,” she said. “It’s trying to keep mess alive virtually, in a form that one can take down or hose off.”

In Oakland, California, community arts organizations are preserving and cataloging more than 700 murals. team is discussing plans including a December outdoor exhibition, a 2021 indoor exhibition, and high school lesson plans centering artwork, said Jean Marie Durant, president of Oakland Art Murmur Board of Directors. Black-led Black Cultural Zone has a leing role in project.

“We’ve been living this story, this trauma for a long time,” CEO Carolyn Johnson said. “That gives us a perspective that ors may t have. We kw how to best tell this story.” Back in Minneapolis, Save Boards is working with researchers Lawrence and Shirey as well as Minnesota African American Herit Museum and Gallery to document, archive and plan an exhibition in May 2021, anniversary of Floyd’s death.

Museum co-founder Tina Burnside says initiative hopes to preserve murals in a way that continues dialogue on systemic racism, provides context and allows for public access.“It’s an important chapter in fight for racial justice in this country,” she said. “We’re documenting history.”Kelly and Zellner-Smith have filled ir warehouse to capacity. y started out by hoarding boards in ir gars. w, y have 537 in a warehouse. y say watching fill up was surreal.

“Being surrounded by se boards that encompass this pain and grief and hope, it was spiritual,” Kelly said. group’s next steps are to catalog boards, do 3D scans and build a virtual gallery.But while Kelly and Zellner-Smith created a GoFundMe to raise money for project, funds have quickly dwindled.“y all need to be saved,” Zellner-Smith said. “y all matter, and we want to keep collecting. We’re just a little stuck right w. But work is far from over.”

(Im Credit: AP)