Community art
“Do it yourself”
In 2020 I got the opportunity to make a floor painting for POW WOW! Rotterdam. The surface is 200m², located at a children’s playground in ‘De Afrikaanderwijk’ in Rotterdam. I painted 8 characters with chalk spray paint, that represent the diversity in the neighborhood. On purpose I left the clothing uncolored and added empty text balloons and other things that can be filled in. For a week we left sidewalk chalk at the artwork and a description on a wooden pallet that people could ‘Do it theirselves’ and finish the artwork. There were no rules, only to let your creativity speak.
The idea behind this concept was to make street art accessible for children and visitors of the festival. To me street art is a beautiful tool to bring people together and this artwork succeeded in this way. It was a super interesting process to see how the work evolved and got more shape every day.
Everyone has their own interpretation when they see an artwork, and this work makes it visual how people can interact with an artwork in different ways. Some people will add stuff, others just cross what’s already there. Some people make stuff related to what’s given, others add completely different things.
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More info:
2021 – “Samen maken wij de wijk”
In 2021 I got the opportunity to do the same concept again for this years edition of POW!WOW! Rotterdam festival. The location of the artwork is at “Hefpark”. For this years interactive artwork I got inspired by the neigbourhood. I choose to paint a city whom the visitors and locals could finish with chalks. The idea behind this city is a metaphor for how I see all cities. The people who live their, write it’s stories, so I wanted to give people a free canvas to let their creativity speak and create the story of the city.
