WHEN you visit the Armidale Skate Park, you might just recognise someone you know among the silhouettes emblazoned on the front wall of the park.
The Skate Park Community Mural, a collaboration between Beyond Empathy and Armidale Dumaresq Council, is part of Beyond Empathy’s larger project for this year called Access All Areas: Opening Doors to Community for Young People in Armidale.
Young skate park users worked with artists Wendy Kimpton and Jonathon Larsen to create portraits or ‘head shots’ that were transformed into silhouettes and stenciled onto the wall.
“Inviting young skate park users to be a part of the art-making process is an integral part of them respecting and appreciating not only the artwork itself, but the physical space it occupies, and recognising their role in the broader community,” project manager Narelle Jarry said.
“The mural offers young people some ownership of what is essentially their place,” she said.
The Community Mural was created during the 2013 Youth Week celebrations and was well received by the many young people who joined in to help paint the wall. Well over 170 youth attended the day’s activities plus parents and onlookers.
A focus area of the Access All Areas project is to translate potentially anti-social activities into positive career pathways, including dance, singing and song writing, physical theatre, the visual arts and design skills.
Access All Areas also aims to create an environment for young people to develop and create artistic works that address issues important to them.
“By utilising silhouettes in the creation of the mural, the co-ordinating artists and the project participants explored themes of difference and belonging,” Ms Jarry said.
“Silhouettes capture the basic essence of individuals and celebrate differences, but also highlight our similarities.”
