Here is my final photo essay. The article can be found here.
Murals give a glimpse of Washington D.C.
By Shaun Chornobroff
To those who don't spend much time in Washington D.C., the city is likely defined by politics and monuments. The city has nearly 700,000 residents, multiple professional sports franchises and a melting pot of different cultures and ideas, multiple universities and a breeding ground for political thought and discussion.
Those who've spent significant time in the nation's capital is much more than congressmen and delayed Metro rides. It’s a city with a booming arts culture, and while many may stop into museums to appreciate that, a quick stroll through the city will lead to pieces eye catching murals.
“The city is great for art,” said Sarah Siock, who has lived in College Park, neighboring Washington D.C. for nearly two years. “All this stuff on the street is just cool and has a lot of meaning.”
Street art is part of the fabric of the city. As washington.org, the city’s marketing website says, “the city’s neighborhood walls are covered with vibrant and unique murals, celebrating everything from hometown heroes to Founding Fathers and even fruit.” These walls are often a form of marketing for businesses, with a number of local restaurants occupying their wall with a colorful mural. One prominent example of this is Madams Organ, a bar in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington D.C., which has a mural of a women with the name of the bar, and its address on her chest.
While museums may house often exotic, wildly expensive pieces of art, the walls of the city are decorated often from those within it. Wander around Washington D.C. and look for street art, you quickly realize it surrounds you.
Among the gems of the city is Aletheia Tanner Park, located in the Eckington neighborhood of the city. Its walls are littered with murals, from detailed portraits, odes to Abraham Lincoln and tributes to different parts of the city. There are tributes to both Eckington and Union Market on these walls. Among its finest pieces is a portrait of a man holding a child (slide 13) done by Martin Swift, a local street artist. The piece was commissioned by Pow!Wow!, a global creative agency fostering collaboration through art.
When Swift started posting the piece, his comment sections displayed the morale boost these pieces can give to the average person.
“Everytime I bike pass this mural it brings a huge smile to my face,” one comment said.
“So beautiful, thank you for sharing this with the city,” another read.
While the drama of Capitol Hill often results in the attention of a national audience, it makes up a sliver of what happens within the city. Mural artists have the ability to fill that gap, representing those who spend their life calling Washington D.C. home.
“When you mention Washington D.C., the first thing people mention is politics,” Aniekan Udofia, a Washington D.C. based mural artist said in a YouTube video. “There’s a whole world going on that people are not familiar with.”
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