Jake Quotes in White Spirit
The residents of this estate took a few surreptitious looks at this pair when they first arrived, and have chosen to stay out of their way since. We’ll have to invite some in specially, over the next couple days, for the photo documentation we need. Some casual shots of the artists chatting and interacting with residents, facilitating important interchange. Community ownership. An appreciation of process. It’s all there in the grant evaluation forms.
She gestures to the mural, where her partner’s painting in the figures of three women. They’re prominent, next to the four laughing Eritrean children who are posing with a basketball.
“Should that be a soccer ball?” I say, half to myself.
“Sorry?”
“Should those kids be holding a soccer ball instead? They’ve actually formed a whole team; they play on the oval on a Sunday afternoon. I think soccer’s more their thing.”
I might be wrong. They might be Somalis.
“They won’t graffiti it,” interjects Mandy, who’s listening. She’s walking along past each big smiling face, giving each eye a realistic twinkle. “Nobody will graffiti anything they feel a sense of ownership and inclusion about.”
I’ve never been here on the estate this late at night. As I splash the sealant on I listen to cars revving and residents shouting, doors slamming, a quick blooping siren as the police pull someone over, the thumping woofers of passing car stereos. And through it all, I hear a babel of voices; every language group we’re so proud of, calling and greeting, arguing and yelling, nearly two thousand people I couldn’t name and who have no use for me. Who glance at me, leaving in my car every afternoon, and look away again, busy with the demands of getting by.
“Such a positive message,” the minister is saying, “and I understand the community itself had a hand in creating it. Marvellous.”
Jake Quotes in White Spirit
The residents of this estate took a few surreptitious looks at this pair when they first arrived, and have chosen to stay out of their way since. We’ll have to invite some in specially, over the next couple days, for the photo documentation we need. Some casual shots of the artists chatting and interacting with residents, facilitating important interchange. Community ownership. An appreciation of process. It’s all there in the grant evaluation forms.
She gestures to the mural, where her partner’s painting in the figures of three women. They’re prominent, next to the four laughing Eritrean children who are posing with a basketball.
“Should that be a soccer ball?” I say, half to myself.
“Sorry?”
“Should those kids be holding a soccer ball instead? They’ve actually formed a whole team; they play on the oval on a Sunday afternoon. I think soccer’s more their thing.”
I might be wrong. They might be Somalis.
“They won’t graffiti it,” interjects Mandy, who’s listening. She’s walking along past each big smiling face, giving each eye a realistic twinkle. “Nobody will graffiti anything they feel a sense of ownership and inclusion about.”
I’ve never been here on the estate this late at night. As I splash the sealant on I listen to cars revving and residents shouting, doors slamming, a quick blooping siren as the police pull someone over, the thumping woofers of passing car stereos. And through it all, I hear a babel of voices; every language group we’re so proud of, calling and greeting, arguing and yelling, nearly two thousand people I couldn’t name and who have no use for me. Who glance at me, leaving in my car every afternoon, and look away again, busy with the demands of getting by.
“Such a positive message,” the minister is saying, “and I understand the community itself had a hand in creating it. Marvellous.”