Q3 What did you find meaningful?
How the picture flows from left to right.
I like the image of the woman coming out of the tree rooting herself in society
The one main figure is really important and I think that's perfect! I love the water flowing from her face (could be seen as tears).
I love the symbolism of growth in this image (trees, water).
The portrayal of nature.
The color scheme. It flows very well, incorporates all of our ideas
Even though its not entirely just like a clear image, it clear to see the mixture of the different sketches put into one, making it much more meaningful
I love the shell spiral reminded me of Marcy Piercy's poem "circling" I loved the black woman standing in the middle like the statue of Liberty and also woven as part of the fabric of colours that flow through the whole mural- for BLM and a world that works where we learn to take care of each other. Where the voices of bipoc are centred. I like the face in shadow and light. Maybe it's my own projection but I'd see in the eyes fear anxiety anger hurt, but also resilient power and truth & compassion.
I kind the spiral as a symbol of cycles of life and cycles of trauma. Many of us experience intergenerational trauma cptsd from colonial violence and impacts of military industrial complex etc. Or the retriggerering could be daily microaggressions if homophobia or transphobia. Or lack of accessibility and the way it just daily little by little weighs on you. The pandemic isolation can also chip away in little ways. I think there are relationships between pandemic as spiral portal & transformation on personal and in communities and the way we heal from trauma, personally and impacted by postcolonial slave syndrome and/ or indigenous Rez school & intergen trauma, or as refugees or migrant workers or trans folks or varying disability or mental health. The image makes me want to talk about it have conversations, learn or grow or listen & hear what others see when the look at it. Coming from a large family if teachers, my inner teacher voice is like hey that would be a cool image to use in a classroom or in a community gathering to encourage discussion and relationship building.
Trees of strength, warrior for justice of all inequality, eyes of seeing and face/ figures of representation of all humans
The tree with the person wrapped in it in the background
the sense of movement and contemplation; the interconnectedness of all living and non-living beings.
The connection to nature and growth as a point of new and unfolding conversations
The symbolism with the tree as well as the spiral imagery showing patterns and cyclical behaviour
I see the wise elder and the young woman with the steps in the middle represents the steps to become the elder.
the nature intertwined with powerful woman, the river coming out of the eye and the movement of the river
Shows Creation's respect for unique relationships. Is in [e]motion.
I really love the giant face behind the water. I love the tree having mother in it and the overall colours of the piece.
I really liked the tree person holding up their fist because that is a symbol of the change we are witnessing right now.
I like the river flowing from near the eye and the person integrated into the tree
The warrior woman tree with her fist in the air is an extremely powerful image. It incorporates the power of nature/necessity of nature, social justice protests, and environmentalism in one blast.
The idea of being immortal.
The image of the person standing with the fist in the air makes me think os many themes (Rage/Voice/Action) I also enjoy the sprial shelle
I find the tree with the person inside to be very powerful.
I think it's all really good, but I found the image of the lady with her arm raised in the tree to be especially powerful, as I feel like it blends the spirit of protest that was in some of the rough sketches and the feeling of Mother Earth and connection to her that one of the Week One speakers discussed
Q.4 What would you change?
Feedback: Add something more direct like ‘can’t breath’
Response: Added. And also, we want to keep the general image wide an open for participants to add details inside. We see this message is really important, so we added it anyways.
Feedback: More human energy
Response: I added more action to the portrait trying to achieve this. Also, I imagine that after the next layer of people’s art in the flat colours, the image will become more alive as well.
Feedback: Represent References to Media during Covid
Response: Yes, this is important. With your suggestion, I considered adding a mask, however, this can also be interpreted as disempowering voice. I did added a mask to the tree warrior however. Also, there will be lots of media type representation with peoples’ art as another layer.
Feedback: Woman’s face in close up is ‘too open for interpretation and not deliberate enough’ what is the story?
Response: Great question. The intent of the woman’s face is to have an instant emotional response from the viewers, not a narrative. However we did added more of her face to add more action. Also, a lot of narrative content will emerge inside the face with participants’ input.
Feedback: Add LGBTQ imagery
Response: Great Idea. We need to make sure that everyone feels reflected in the mural. We encourage participants to add all of this imagery on the second layer. Also, we added the rainbow colours on the shell.
Feedback: Missing. Where are our relations, teachers… sun, fire, heart
Response: Thank you, we made the sun fire as a central image coming out of the shell.
Feedback: More animal life: a crow, cat, fish, dragon, unicorn, blue heron….
Response: Yes, I completely agree with you. And I encourage all these images to be added by participants inside of this image.
Feedback: Integrate the shell into the picture.
Response: Yes. We did this and worked great.
Feedback: Connect the river closer to the eye so that it really looks that is crying.
Response: I’m glad you caught this. We want it to be suggestive and not too direct so that it is open for more interpretations. Saying that, we will move it a bit closer together.
Feedback: Not a fan of the spiral
Response: I understand..it is a bit conceptual at the moment. The spiral is more of a symbol. But given the feedback, we merged it with the overall image and added more elements. Also, I trust that once participants add their art inside the spiral, it will becomes more interesting.
Feedback: What is the face doing or conveying? It’s taking too much space.
Response: Good question. The face is visibility, and it’s saying I am here, I am strong, I want to be seen. This was an ongoing narrative in the sketches. We do take your feedback and added more action to the face. We do not want to put too much detail to the face because need open spaces for participants to add their art inside.
Feedback: Main face falls within western beauty standards and the colours make it hard to tell if she is indigenous, POC, or black.
Response: Thank you for the feedback!! What you are saying is essential. It was important in the debrief that the portrait represents a black woman, so I will make the right adjustments to colour contrast to make this more literal. On the First draft, I tried to keep the same high contrast of the original drawing Briana (a participant) drew and only adding tint to it; and I can see how this made the skin tone too ambiguous for the intention.
Feedback: Spiral takes too much space.
Response: We integrated the spiral with the overall image and this opened space to the portrait and the tree-warrior.
Feedback: The trees on the background are not that important.
Response: The trees were a metaphor of all the other people supporting movements. We added more details to the trees to make this visibly understandable, so thank you for that.
Feedback: Make the tree-person stand out more
Response: We re-arranged the objects trying to achieve this and put some colour contrast for the silhouette to stand out.
Feedback: What is the blue colour on the face?
Response: Im glad you asked. This is a river. We are integrating layers of a background with the foreground. We encourage those who choose the river area to place images related to water. We also took out the rocks around the river in her face to make this image more simpler to read.
Feedback: Would there be allotted space for text?
Response: Absolutely. You can put text wherever you like as long as you put it inside the image you choose to create.
Feedback: Consider putting mouth to represent voice.
Response: Thank you. We understood the value in doing this and we did.
Feedback: Integrate aspect of time
Response: We encourage participants to add this on their art pieces.
Feedback: The colour is too blocky, it needs more depth and more contrast between shadows and light.
Response: Yes, the final piece will not have this same type of blockiness. The colour is there only to give you a sense of the colour palette.
Feedback: More bodies, less landscape. Add scenes of protests. Transition from rage/injustice into voice/creation.
Response: The trees were supposed to represent the supporting crowds, so we added more details to the protesters to make this narrative more obvious. Thank you.
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