Nurture Light

Murals at school

Light is connected to knowledge and good spirit. This double side murals talk about an inside and outside quest for it. There’s a personal, internal process on the front, where the character finds his/her unique light and shares it outside.
On the back, there’s a collective action where the characters are moving into a warm playful spot, where this nice energy is concentrating.
Both are opposites but part of the same cycle: being active and curious, give what what we have, learn what we find.

Lamp

Right around the corner of this school there’s a gigant table lamp installed in the open air. As a latinamerican, living in Madrid, I used to take light and weather for granted. I did complain when days became shorter in winter, but up until this trip, I didn’t know what cold and darkness can do to your spirit (years later I moved to Canada, haha). During this project I stayed at a neighbor’s house who asked me to never turn the lights of off. She said “it may sound weird, but I need the light”. After a while I started to understand, that endless cold darkness really gets to you. And to see that lamp every day on my way home really felt like a hug to my soul. I used to stop for a while to contemplate it, and I’m happy I integrated it into the mural.

Backstage

I often find myself wondering why I’m doing this/how did things got to this point. This time it all started “kinda difficult” and ended up “craziest wall I’ve ever painted”. Norway + October= I was expecting cold weather but not as extreme as it got. I had very little light so I made very slow progress. Victor, the organizer, calmed me down saying that we could extend the trip… but each day got darker and colder, and physical/emotional exhaustion increased.

On the last days two good things happened: Morten, a friend I met in another festival in the Arctic, happened to be a local. He heard I was painting there so he came by (along with a Northern jacket, Wine and Chocolate). We had an amazing talk, and all the time I was thinking that worldwide-streetart-friendships are a surreal thing.

The second thing was that Victor’s mom heard about the whole weather situation and she came by with a snowsuit for me to use. “But I’m gonna get paint on it” I said. “No worries”. I thanked them with all my heart, and returned it after I finished. The next year I went back to Norway for another project , and I got the suit back, but this time I took it with me. Victor said “there’s no such thing as bad weather, there’s only bad clothes”. What a lesson! I’ll be forever grateful to him and his mum.

Links/Press

🔗 Urbansamtidskunst official site

✤ “New art at school” Haugenstua school
✤ “What do the children think about the new art?” AKS Junior

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