Access to Art: Proyecto Muraleando

Relating to our discussion today about access to art, I remembered an amazing community center my family and I visited in Cuba called "Proyecto Muraleando." This program grew out of a small neighborhood outside Havana. Its residents teamed up to clean the town, and then they transformed the town into one large piece of artwork--covered in murals, paintings, and sculptures. Moreover, they bring in artists of all disciplines to teach free art classes to the local kids (children learn drawing, painting, sculpture, theatre, dance, music, and more). The students and artists use the town as their canvas to create. I think that providing these kids with art supplies and hands-on instruction is an incredible example of improving access to art. Unequal access to art is an enormous problem, especially because art is not as "essential" as things like food. This is certainly the case, but having artistic instruction and resources can have important psychological benefits as well. Proyecto Muraleando actually doesn't receive government funding; they source their funds from donations. I think Proyecto Muraleando provides an amazing program design for improving access to art, and I could see it being successfully implemented in other neighborhoods as well. (The first photo is one I took of a musical performance there.)


-Sophia