Vanishing Walls and the Power of Public Art
Faculty Advisor Name
Corinne Diop
Department
School of Art, Design & Art History
Description
Public art is not only aesthetics but also a vehicle for storytelling. A tool for activism, and a tool for establishing belongingness. My mural practice is concerned with the ephemerality of murals as a metaphor for identity, cultural memory, and social transformation. In my research project, Vanishing Walls, I am studying how public art narrates stories of belonging and social cohesion. I have created 11 murals in the past year at James Madison University (JMU), transforming campus spaces into cultural attractions that facilitate dialogue on identity, diversity, and belonging.
Outside of the gates of JMU, my influence reaches the rest of Harrisonburg. I was one of ten artists selected for the Harrisonburg Traffic Cabinet Wrap Art Project, an initiative wrapping city buildings with a new name and featured in The Citizen and Rocktown Now. My art project at Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, also illustrates my use of art as a force of social change in peacebuilding. My art has also been featured on the front page of the Daily News-Record as well, which for a visual artist is not always the case, illustrating my nature as a community arts-based artist.
Mentorship and learning guide my practice. I've taught mural painting and visual storytelling to young artists in workshops with the Explore More Museum, Shenandoah National Park's Art in the Park program, and Walton Middle School in Charlottesville. JMU Admissions invited me to present at the RPS-WAM! Duke-for-a-Day program, where my murals were helping make first impressions on prospective students about JMU's commitment to diversity. My work with Arts Council of the Valley also assists my work in developing Harrisonburg's public art.
Apart from the future project-objective, I am also going to attempt the Guinness World Record for the World's Largest Individual Drawing in 2025 on a 7,000-square-meter painting at the JMU campus. My record-breaking record will draw global attention to the world, Harrisonburg and Virginia, and how large paintings can enable mass participation possible globally.
For the Graduate Student Showcase of Scholarship & Creative Activities, I will be showing a video that documents my artistic process, research, and community engagement of my art. The video presentation will include time-lapse footage of my murals, behind-the-scenes footage, community interactions, and my personal reflections on how public art shapes society's narrative.
Through this interactive presentation, I hope to show how murals are both temporary and permanent community symbols that provoke discussion on community identity and historical preservation. By wedding scholarship and activism, my project challenges centuries of assumption regarding the timelessness of art and appropriates the activist potential of public art to forge collective memory. The presentation will be a visually striking examination of how art can simultaneously be an intellectual concern as well as a catalyst for social change.
Vanishing Walls and the Power of Public Art
Public art is not only aesthetics but also a vehicle for storytelling. A tool for activism, and a tool for establishing belongingness. My mural practice is concerned with the ephemerality of murals as a metaphor for identity, cultural memory, and social transformation. In my research project, Vanishing Walls, I am studying how public art narrates stories of belonging and social cohesion. I have created 11 murals in the past year at James Madison University (JMU), transforming campus spaces into cultural attractions that facilitate dialogue on identity, diversity, and belonging.
Outside of the gates of JMU, my influence reaches the rest of Harrisonburg. I was one of ten artists selected for the Harrisonburg Traffic Cabinet Wrap Art Project, an initiative wrapping city buildings with a new name and featured in The Citizen and Rocktown Now. My art project at Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, also illustrates my use of art as a force of social change in peacebuilding. My art has also been featured on the front page of the Daily News-Record as well, which for a visual artist is not always the case, illustrating my nature as a community arts-based artist.
Mentorship and learning guide my practice. I've taught mural painting and visual storytelling to young artists in workshops with the Explore More Museum, Shenandoah National Park's Art in the Park program, and Walton Middle School in Charlottesville. JMU Admissions invited me to present at the RPS-WAM! Duke-for-a-Day program, where my murals were helping make first impressions on prospective students about JMU's commitment to diversity. My work with Arts Council of the Valley also assists my work in developing Harrisonburg's public art.
Apart from the future project-objective, I am also going to attempt the Guinness World Record for the World's Largest Individual Drawing in 2025 on a 7,000-square-meter painting at the JMU campus. My record-breaking record will draw global attention to the world, Harrisonburg and Virginia, and how large paintings can enable mass participation possible globally.
For the Graduate Student Showcase of Scholarship & Creative Activities, I will be showing a video that documents my artistic process, research, and community engagement of my art. The video presentation will include time-lapse footage of my murals, behind-the-scenes footage, community interactions, and my personal reflections on how public art shapes society's narrative.
Through this interactive presentation, I hope to show how murals are both temporary and permanent community symbols that provoke discussion on community identity and historical preservation. By wedding scholarship and activism, my project challenges centuries of assumption regarding the timelessness of art and appropriates the activist potential of public art to forge collective memory. The presentation will be a visually striking examination of how art can simultaneously be an intellectual concern as well as a catalyst for social change.
