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CS: Chris Shannahan MA: Mohammed Ali
PW: Paul Wright CS: The Bromford Dreams Graffiti Spirituality
Project has been an exciting partnership between the University of Birmingham, the Worth Unlimited
youth organisation, the Muslim graffiti artist Mohammed Ali and Arts council England. It’s
a project that come sat the end, and forms the culmination of my eighteen-month research
project on the Bromford estate, working alongside unemployed young men to think about how their
experience of social exclusion affects the way they talk and think about spirituality.
MA: we’ve been planning for a while to bring one of these mural cube projects to the city.
I’ve painted a lot of similar projects, these cubes in fact, which has been an extension
of my mural projects where I’m painting the side of a building, a flat surface, which
evolved into these cube structures where the arts isn’t flat, rather you engage with
it whilst circling it and spinning around it and it unravels as you walk.
PW: The cube is basically the end of the project. What we were wanting to do was give a fantastic
opportunity for young people to express themselves – to have a look at their dreams, their
identity, their struggles – something that was real, not something that was fake or just
focussed on the positives – something that meant something to them.
MA: It makes perfect sense to be bringing this into this neighbourhood. For me it’s
not about preaching to the converted – it’s about working with young people – people
who need to use different ways of expression – this being the visual arts and public
art being that expression of them being heard. Their art being an expression of themselves.
CS: We’ve given them the opportunity to raise their voice, to weave their dreams onto
the Bromford Dreams cube. The story that they’ve told is disturbing, it’s challenging, but
it’s also uplifting and very thought-provoking. MA: There is imagery depicted within the cube
that came over a period of a week engaging with young people. Talking, engaging and event
travelling and eating together. It was a unique experience that we delivered for the young
people. During that week we took out some of those challenging subject matters, that
for some might be difficult to comprehend or appreciate. It was important that the mural
really spoke about certain truths for the young people, certain realities for them and
didn’t censor them in any way. I didn’t push them in any way towards what might be
comfortable for me as an artist or for the rest of the community – it really was their
voice. So there was imagery that was difficult and powerful and disturbing maybe, but this
is their reality. If you travel around the cube you will probably
see, actually there’s different moods – it’s like a mood-cube if you like – in that as
you travel around it there’s a story to it, a narrative. You might see the angry expression
but then you might see a very spiritual and almost sacred element to the cube.
CS: I hope this Bromford Dreams cube will be on tour, not least coming to the University
itself before coming back home to the Bromford. The story is just beginning.
MA: When a mural is painted in one location where it might stay there for the next five
to ten years – if we’d painted on the side of one of these tower-blocks for example
– I think the mural, the art, really speaks to a different audience. It takes on a different
dimension in a way. As opposed to something like this which is mobile and moves to a different
space. We had to bear in mind when we designed this – who is the viewer? Where will it
be seen? These are different dynamics to something that may be based here, on a permanent location,
speaking to the people in this space. The cube going to different locations and
different parts of the town, definitely takes the voice of the young people to different
spaces where they may not have been heard. CS: It’s been a real privilege to be part
of this project and a really important expression of how the University can engage seriously
and in-depth with grass-roots communities, to the benefit of the community and to the
benefit of the University.