In Mexico, a Gritty Neighborhood Has Become a 65,000-Square-Foot Mural

[Judi Lynn]

Last edited Tue Jul 28, 2015, 07:09 PM - Edit history (1)

In Mexico, a Gritty Neighborhood Has Become a 65,000-Square-Foot Mural

A hillside in Pachuca gets a psychedelic makeover



(Germen Crew)
By Helen Thompson
smithsonian.com
July 28, 2015 1:30PM

Any day is now a beautiful day in the Palmitas neighborhood of Pachuca, Mexico. The hillside is the site of a roughly 65,000-square-foot candy-colored mural, reports Christopher Jobson for This is Colossal.

The giant painting is a joint project between the Mexican government at the street art group Germen Crew, Jobson reports. It spans 209 homes, inhabited by 452 families and 1808 people, according to Street Art News. In addition to sprucing up the area, the project aims at social improvement by creating jobs and hopefully cutting crime and violence on the hillside.

More:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mexico-street-artists-brighten-rough-neighborhood-65000-square-foot-mural-180956090/?no-ist

[Judi Lynn]

1. Working-class barrio turns into huge rainbow mural in Mexico

Working-class barrio turns into huge rainbow mural in Mexico


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Hundreds of houses painted in bright colors in what organizers claim is Mexico's largest mural, is part of a government-
sponsored project is called Pachuca Paints Itself, in the Palmitas neighborhood, in Pachuca, Mexico, Thursday, July 30, 2015.
German Crew is the artist collective responsible for painting the mural project. Director Enrique Gomez, who goes by MYBE,
said the crew has painted 1,500 square meters with 20,000 liters of paint. The project aims to bring the community together
and rehabilitate the area. (AP Photo/Sofia Jaramillo)

Associated Press

Aug. 1, 2015 | 10:55 a.m. EDT

By RICARDO LOPEZ, Associated Press

PACHUCA, Mexico (AP) — A community project in central Mexico is bringing art to people's homes. Literally.
A group of artists known as the Germ Collective have spent 14 months turning the hillside neighborhood of Las Palmitas into a giant, colorful mural in an effort to bring the working-class "barrio" together and change its gritty image.

Working hand-in-hand with residents, muralists have painted the facades of 200 homes bright lavender, lime green, incandescent orange — hues more commonly found in a bag of Skittles than in the drab, cement-and-cinderblock neighborhoods where many of Mexico's poor live.


Seen from afar, the individually painted houses combine to form a cohesive, if abstract, swirly rainbow design. Bright stripes that begin on one wall run across several homes before swooping into graceful curlicues.

It's an homage to the wind: the city of Pachuca is nicknamed "la bella airosa," a Spanish phrase that loosely translates as "the beautiful breezy city."

More:
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/08/01/working-class-barrio-turns-into-huge-rainbow-mural-in-mexico