Blazing sun, tuc-tucs, school kids, roaring motorbikes, street vendors, debt collectors, drunkards, goats, housewives, workmen, more kids, fire truck, stray dogs in all shapes and sizes… To say the street leading to the Vista Hermosa neighbourhood is busy, is an understatement… This was community mural painting at its best, with children who gave a willing helping hand, lots of appreciative feedback from neighbours, drinks being offered and happy teachers at the school we were painting at.
Little by little Vista Hermosa in
Jocotenango, Guatemala, is being transformed from a dangerous and ugly barrio
into a colourful, much cleaner and liveable community. Thanks to the UrbanHeART collective, an initiative from young people from this community, murals
keep popping up. In November 2021 we painted a 12-meter-long mural at the
public wash basin at the entrance of the neighbourhood. This year we continued
the collaboration with Urban HeART with a workshop for a group of young painters
and two murals, one at the side wall of the public wash basin, the other one at
the wall of the kindergarten, along the street that leads into Vista Hermosa. The
surface was a bit rough, but the dimensions nice and big (26 meter long!) and also
very public. It was a pleasure to work with Denilson Larios and Gustavo Illescas of
Urban HeART!
This project (the two murals and the
workshop) was sponsored by the Dutch Foundation Colour4Kids.
