Community murals take on new life through shared encounter and engagement.
When murals are shared—through walking, learning, conversation, and reflection—they become spaces where people think together about place, history, and lived experience.
Through mural tours, school curricula, oral histories, exhibits, internships, and our growing digital archive, we create ways for people to encounter community murals in place and over time. These encounters invite reflection and conversation, helping the stories murals hold—and the communities they represent—remain shared and alive in public life as places change.
Through this work, we have learned that activating murals is not just about sharing them, but about supporting public learning that deepens understanding of place and lived experience over time.
“Muralism is an opportunity for us to be seen, to be able to speak more clearly and loudly who we are”
Alicia Cardenas, Artist
Encounter
We facilitate encounters with murals in everyday life—on neighborhood walks, during guided tours, in classrooms, exhibits, and online. Through these encounters, we invite people to pause, look closely, and notice what murals hold.
Learn
We facilitate learning through murals across settings and ages. Through curricula, oral histories, and interpretive materials, we support people in exploring the histories, meanings, and lived experiences associated with each mural.
Connect
We facilitate shared moments around murals that open space for conversation and connection. Through these moments, we help create shared reference points that link people to place and to one another across generations.
GetInvolved
Engage with community murals as shared learning spaces.
We collaborate with schools, educators, and community partners to design learning experiences that connect murals to place, history, and lived experience. Many activation projects are developed collaboratively, with partners shaping ideas together and identifying funding pathways that make the work possible.
If you’re interested in exploring how murals can be activated in your classroom, neighborhood, or institution, we’d love to hear from you.
