Talking Walls

Overview

Public art promotes community pride and visual interest. Within THPRD parks, the purpose of public art is to make places more vibrant, livable, accessible, and creative. Public art could be imaginative, engaging, dynamic, interactive, aesthetically pleasing, connected, and sustainable.

Objective

THPRD stands with our community in solidarity for racial justice. We want to provide our community with the space and time to share their messages of hope, inspiration, and purpose.

• What is a Talking Wall?

A Talking Wall is a form of expression and visual storytelling about socially relevant themes. A Talking Wall is usually represented as a mural, but it may be a different form of art. The objective of these pieces is to serve as a source of inspiration and education for residents and visitors.

The Talking Walls project is made possible in partnership with Color Outside the Lines a non-profit that strives to empower and inspire foster and at-risk youth by providing opportunities with art, music, movement and creativity.

Where are the Talking Walls located?

• Sunset Park Sport Complex

In partnership with the Sunset Highschool Black Student Union and Color Outside the Lines, we collaborated with the commuity, students, family and artists to create four Talking Walls and an art instalation "I Have a Dream" .

Activities included the creation of three walls and additional activities such as Spoken Word (Ted Talk presenter Deangelo Raines) and an "I Have a Dream" art installation that students wanted to have: Showing the dreams of youth showcased in several fists and depicted in a way that you read “I Have a Dream” from the main road. We also had a Chalk the Block activity (Chalk Art) and a Message Garden.

Event photos here

• Greenway Park

The Talking Walls in Greenway Park is our second mural project within the district. THPRD and Color Outside the Lines collaborated once again in the creation of three murals.

For this occasion, COL brought together three Native artists:

• Rudy Redstone Serna with the piece “Beloved Ancestors”. More on Rudy.
• Toma Villa with the piece “Those who live along the rivers”. More on Toma.
• Pattrick Price with the piece “Sunset Hummingbird”. More on Pattrick.

Youth (ages 4 -18) were invited to a working session to paint and connect with artists. They also partcipated with:

-An activity led by Mariah Makalapua "Meaning and Creation of a Truth Stick".

-And "Storytelling - Elk & Sturgeon" with Toma Villa

Listen to the artists explain each of their pieces on this video created by The Oregonian

The Talking Walls in Greenway Park are located on the corner of SW Greenway Blvd and SW Parkview Loop (next to Greenway Elementary School).

• Center Street Park

Artists, youth and the community participated with the visting artist Mauricio Ramirez in the creation of the mural "Form and Harmony"at Center Street Park.

More on Mauricio's work:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/sourappless

Website: https://mauriciopaints.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mauriciopaints/

To see the most recent mural that Mauricio created of Beatrice Morrow Cannady's click here. It is located at Schrunk Tower in St. John’s Portland Oregon

• We have two more Talking Walls Projects comming up for 2021 located at our HMT Complex and Center Street Park. For more information on these evets or about the Talking Walls send us an email