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Greenhill | Projects | Greenhill Mural Project | Project Details
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Greenhill Mural Project - Project Details |
 This was the first part of the wider project which is taking place in both Greenhill and Agar Nook and also on three estates in Loughborough.
eState of the Art is funded by the Arts Council of England as part of a series of projects into arts and social inclusion, in order to gather information and feed into national plans for future ways of working. |
| The project aims to engage young people who would otherwise be excluded from arts activities but we wanted to take this wider so that the project was also about fostering inter-generational work and activity. |
The aims of this part of the project can be summed up as follows:
-to give young people in Greenhill an opportunity to participate in exciting and dynamic arts activity, with professional artists and workers.
-to really engage the participants in the project and create an atmosphere of excitement, pride, self-worth, achievement and the wish to take part in further arts activity.
-for both the hands-on participatory process and the “end product” to be of a high quality - quality of experience as well as an end result which all feel proud of.
-for participants to feel a real sense of ownership of the project process and product.
-to make plans with participants for future aspects of the project (and to gather information to enable all project partners to make firm plans about the next stages of the project).
-to foster interaction and communication between people of different ages - especially different generations living on Greenhill estate.
-to create pride and positive feeling - about the estate and about self.
-to gather information, ideas and material (e.g. photos etc) which will feed into the wider aspects of the project. |
 This first stage of the project in Coalville is a mural, on the site of an old chemists shop. This part of the project is planned in partnership with Greenhill Youth Centre and North West Leicestershire District Council. The project process involved initial meetings with youth workers, young people, artists and volunteers living and working in Greenhill. The mural was decided upon for several reasons: |
-it would make a strong and quite instant visual impact on the estate and hopefully create a positive talking point, thereby also engaging people in all aspects of the project and the different organisations involved.
-it would allow participants to drop in and out of workshops so that they could engage with the project, the artists and Mantle on different levels, for different amounts of time and on their own terms
-it would foster positive interaction between different generations, especially young people and older people, seeking to prove that young people also care about the places in which they live and can make a positive and creative contribution.
-it would explore the history of the area and pay homage to the Coal mining industry and the important issues and feelings experienced by people living and working around the mines.
-it would allow young people to work with skilled community artists and thereby to explore their own creativity in a safe, secure, supportive and encouraging atmosphere.
-participants would learn new skills which could then be taken into other elements of the project. |
| The mural was created over the period of a week (July 15th - 20th) in the summer of 2002. Julia Doncaster and Matt Chell led the sessions and additional funding had been secured by Greenhill Youth Centre through the Catalyst Fund (Leicestershire County Council). The Youth Centre provided youth workers to work alongside the artists; young people (aged from 3 to 20) - and adults - from the estate took part in the project. |
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The result is a really stunning and large mural, depicting the areas’ mining industry. The mural is very visible and stands out from several approaches to the site (and can be seen as you drive / walk along Cropston Drive from the Broom Leys road end). This art work is really striking and has received a large amount of very positive feedback and was featured significantly in local press.
There was an isolated incident of vandalism one evening early on in the project with writing sprayed across the whole mural, resulting in the project team having to spend several hours re-covering the affected areas (the mural is now sealed with varnish). Yet there was a really positive element to this incident in that it demonstrated the commitment of participants and local residents to the project. Without exception everyone involved in the mural and local residents were outraged by the attack on their art work and went out of their way to talk to the project team and express their anger at the vandalism and their delight at the mural. There was a real and incredibly strong feeling of ownership and care for the artwork and the themes and issues expressed within it.
The project served also as a talking point and cross over between older and younger people on the estate. People walking by on their way to the shops stopped to talk to the project team and to express their positive feelings about the work. |
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