Mar
4
Although quite long, the readings were interesting this week. I really enjoy the thought of murals having a large impact on popular culture in Latin America. The first reading really hit it home what muralism is and how it affects popular culture in so many ways. I really enjoy the background as always, the history of something such as murals in Latin America. I enjoy this because I can also relate as I have many artists as friends and they participate in painting murals in Vancouver and other places all the time. I can easily see how it changes minds and views of art in a dramatically different way. Murals really bring forward the reality of an area or place and lets the whole world know what’s going on.
The different stories about all the people who are touched by murals, or perceive them in different ways than what might be expected is also interesting. In our first reading the women in Colonia Guerrero talk about how they see murals in the context of their experiences and lives, “in relation to the spaces they occupy and the experience they are interpreted as depicting.” This shows how murals are incorporated into their everyday lives, these murals are somewhat ‘ordinary’ so to speak, living the lives these women lead every day. They love the idea of having murals in the places they frequent the most, being part of their relaity as well as telling it’s own.
The way murals are a part of popular places, places that are walked by every day by people who are willing to look and listen, these are the ways in which things are changed. To paint a mural depicting a suffering culture, would be to break the silence that most people become accustomed to, to make change and call out the wrong in life. This first reading speaks a lot about political change, public discourse and how murals often attempt to bring something to light.
The second reading was a little more complicated. I love the stroy telling aspect of this reading but I found it difficult to find my way out of the story it was trying to tell. Ok that was confusing, so what I mean to say is that I didn’t know the underlying meaning of this story, I found it difficult to decipher it’s content but perhaps that’s my problem.
