Community Mural

It’s been a challenging year for everyone with work, but technology has provided an extraordinary support for many of us looking to make ends meet. At first, last year’s lockdown seemed to spell prolonged periods of inactivity or uncertainty, but then Zoom made its presence felt. There’s still a lot of question marks over the reach of these new technologies – ‘surveillance capitalism’ as the business writer Shushana Zuboff calls them – but there’s no denying the incredible benefits the online platforms provide.

After a year of online teaching, I’ve found myself from the beginning of this year in the strange situation of leading a ‘community arts workshop’ online. It’s a mural project that had been commissioned by Ealing Council at the beginning of 2020 – a month or so before the impact of Covid-19.

The project hibernated for some months, but at the end of the year we rescheduled its start for February 2021. An ‘online mural project’ sounds a bit ridiculous, but we’ve started one and it’s actually been working well.

Obviously, there’s been no mural painting done on location, but a whole load of preparatory work and engagement topics have been explored, all facilitated through Zoom. The small group of teenagers involved have all been enthusiastic, and we’ve developed a little portfolio of ideas, sketches and paintings, in readiness for when we descend again next month on the local youth centre.

It’s been interesting work so far – the sketches done are the first steps for a wide ranging project, planned to cover a lot of the space available on some pretty big walls. The gradual opening up of public spaces again will probably see a big expansion of these kinds of projects, right throughout the UK.