A community art project that was too controversial for New York city has found a home in Phoenix’s Grand Avenue arts district.
The mural was nearly finished when I stopped by last week. Half a dozen artists were there painting or standing back to Instagram the process – which, really, is also part of spreading a message. In fact, I only heard about the piece because one of the artists from the Frida Kahlo exhibit, Monique Mata, had shared it there.
The Mission
The inspiration came from the film Who is Dayani Cristal?, a documentary that retraces the steps of the migrant trail in Central America in an effort to identify a body discovered in the Sonoran desert.
This work of helping families find the bodies of missing migrants is exactly what the nonprofit Colibrí Center for Human Rights in Tucson does, as well as providing counseling and advocacy services. Their Missing Migrant Project has the goal of “working to end migrant death and related suffering on the U.S.-Mexico border.”
Mata Ruda, the New York/New Jersey artist who designed the mural, believes awareness and prevention are key to this. If migrants are invisible to society, their deaths will go unnoticed, the problem unsolved.
The mural is one way to tell their story, make them visible.
While taking a popsicle break, he filled me in on the history of the project – that it been approved then later blocked at 5 different sites from a musuem in New York City to a garage in downtown Phoenix, apparently due to its subject matter. Finally, the Colibrí Center connected them with the spot at La Melgrosa art space.
The Mural
The mural is also called “Colibrí,” named for Colibrí Center and for the hummingbird, which migrates throughout the Americas. It was created to bring awareness of the often-overlooked migrant community.
At least 7 artists collaborated on the piece, mostly from Arizona (with one traveling across the state from the Navajo reservation).
You can see the finished mural outside Creation Station at La Melgosa, 1023 W. Grand Avenue in Phoenix.
Mata Ruda’s hope is that Colibrí remains a permanent piece of public art and that it makes people aware of the migrants who often are invisible to society.
Like the community it represents, the project has been on a long journey to finally be seen.