“Every canvas is a journey all its own.” Helen Frankenthaler
Objective of the initiative: to raise awareness about environmental issues through art, and revitalize a wall(s) in Lefkada.
A mural is a good way to bring color and attention to walls that are abandoned, to raise awareness on various topics and last but not the least to catch people´s attention with a beautiful and powerful drawing.
The goal is to start with one wall, and if it is possible to continue this project painting more walls in Lefkada. The topics that were chosen are plastic waste, local purchasing, sea pollution and environment protection. The planned murals are starring by animals, most of them related to Lefkada, that are involved in different situations according to the topic selected. On a longer perspective the murals could become even a tourist attraction for the town.
As experienced in other places, muralism has been a powerful tool to catch attention to issues and a way to place the city on the map, as many murals are shared in social media and spread around the world.
Process
The roots of the initiative came from the friendship of Ivan, European Solidarity Corps volunteer at Solidarity Tracks, organizing Time bank activities and Omar, member of Time Bank Lefkada. To achieve a powerful mural and not just a drawing in the wall, firstly they orientated on the drawings of Omar Truco who already made several ones in the past. Omar is a visual artist with experience making murals in Mexico and Finland. Ivan and Omar proposed to focus on environmental issues. Since Μονοπάτια Αλληλεγγύης defends sustainable development values and aims to raise awareness to the local community on connected topics we as organization were very positive to support this project.
To develop the idea of making a mural in Lefkada, we had several meetings, brainstorming at our office between the members of Μονοπάτια Αλληλεγγύης and others. Later on, we continued focusing on possible walls that can give place for murals in the town of Lefkas.
After collecting all the photos of several places, we started thinking about possible topics and what message we want to send to the public in order to raise awareness. Several ideas were born, followed by draft plans. Each one who had ideas and prepared sketches presented its own and we voted for the favorites. The first wall and the chosen design winner was Kastro wall with Caretta Caretta – to raise awareness on the importance and existence of turtles on the beaches of Lefkada as a specie at risk of extension.
New details about this Mural and the artists you will find in our next article. Continue to follow and read our blog.
