Collaborative Murals in Troy, New York, March 2009
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In March 2009 ICAE and The Sanctuary for Independent Media teamed up once again with Albany/Troy area peace and justice groups to paint a collaborative mural, inviting local youth to join with the Iraqi children/youth for a weekend of cross-cultural mural painting at the Sanctuary. This was the first time ICAE integrated US and Iraqi youth working side-by-side on the same project.
Some thirty children/youth between the ages of 8 and 18 years old participated. The event began with an afternoon meeting at the Albany Public Library which was hosting an exhibit of the first murals painted the previous fall at the Sanctuary. We divided the children into two groups according to age, each working with a visiting artist. The first meeting was used to introduce ourselves and begin the process of deciding together what images we would use on the murals.
We painted all day Saturday and finished up on Sunday. Exhausted but exhilarated by our work, we held a joyful "opening" event and celebration in the late afternoon. The Art Miles Mural Project has painted more than 5,000 murals, some of them cross-cultural, integrated murals. However, we think this is the very first mural where the youth/children actually worked together in person to design and paint the mural.
• Article in Albany Times-Union, 3/20/09
• Article in The Altamont Enterprise, 3/22/09
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