2020 has been a difficult year for the world. With the recent pandemic people all over the world have largely been put into situations and circumstances in which we have never have to deal with. In the midst of a global pandemic America was faced with another brutal killing of a black man at the hands of the police, which set off an uprising that has filled our streets with voices of objection, to the systemic racism here in America. Along with those protestors came opportunist that have left a path of destruction and vandalism across the City of Richmond. With some of our feelings and demands now physically on Richmond City walls through tags, these expressions leave and mark a space for questions and conversations to happen.
These actions inspired the artist Hamilton Glass to start the Mending Walls project.
In Richmond, VA public art is one of the city’s biggest assets in the downtown area. As a city with one of the largest collections of public art in the United states we now have the unique opportunity to use public art as a tool to bring empathy and connect at a time when we need it the most.
Mending Walls was derived from a Robert Frost poem published in 1914. Mending wall narrates a story of two neighbors working on a wall between their two farms. As the men work, the narrator questions the purpose of a wall “where it is we do not need the wall” but as the story goes on his neighbor replies twice with the proverb, “Good fences make good neighbors”. It’s this concept of why we, as Americans, put up walls, literally and figuratively, that inspired the title of Glass’ project.
SOURCE: https://mendingwallsrva.com
From July-September 2020, Hamilton Glass paired together Richmond based artists from different backgrounds, ethnicities and perspectives to create murals that reflect deep conversations about race and equality in the hopes that it sparks a larger conversation within our community.
The documentary takes viewers behind the scenes of this three month public art project by being present in these conversations between painters, the design process, the painting of the murals and the civic engagement activities that will follow.
It's a story of recognizing frustration and confusion, understanding differences, finding empathy,
and healing a community through art.
Production is currently in progress.
Broadcast on VPM/PBS in early Spring 2021 (TBD).
