Post #3488859

2026-06-30 08:18 UTC

@FigFan55@adlsolarpunk.net I really like murals when they're done right, lots of radical mural artists and mural traditions I've heard about overseas (e.g. Jacob V. Joyce or the Free Derry wall), and I think some good murals have been done here too like when someone did a giant portrait of Aunty Jenny Munro overlooking where the Redfern tent embassy she was central to had been. Being against murals as a blanket statement doesn't really make sense to me, it's like being against paintings without specifying which type? Definitely they can just as easily be bland corporate-friendly stuff (or outright offensively awful corporate stuff like what was painted on the huge concrete wall of the parking garage at the extended Burnside shopping centre - just a bunch of grey smudges). But I like that they're an opportunity to raise awareness about things, like when they're used for political messages or to showcase native plants and animals that people might not otherwise know about, like at the new car parks in the extended Crafers park n ride...and I also think it's important for the people who don't have a choice about living in or moving through city centres to have access to beauty and colour that isn't trying to sell them something.

Replies (1)

@FigFan55@adlsolarpunk.net 2026-06-30 11:30

@atriplex@adlsolarpunk.net So true - I am not against murals as a whole, which I did not clarify and instead just used a vomit emoji. I am talking specifically of the mural culture that is in Adelaide (tho by no means unique to here), where they are frequently commissioned by business or the city council as an attempt at beautifying/interestingafying (<-- real word) a place, that imposes itself on a place and the people that use it rather than emerging organically. They are also often used as a means of squashing tagging out of spaces and other informal forms of street art. And many of artists that make them do not bother to create them in relation to the space well! And many of them are an attempt at making an ugly building look good - in many cases I would prefer a less ugly building/car park/whatever etc. Obviously building constructors and mural painters/commissioners are rarely overlapping groups... So, this is not to say that I have problems with all murals - there are some spectacular ones out there! - I just think that many of the murals I see around the city are not very good, and not made very thoughtfully Interesting that u should mention the burnside shopping centre mural. It looks very much like the work of Seb Humphreys/Order55, who has been very hit and miss for me in the many years I have been aware of his work (I had a big street art interest in 2014). Some of his are interesting in how he has pushed spray paint techniques, and some feel very empty of feeling, the burnside one included. I think for me it's because it is so clearly tied to the commercial nature of the site it's hard to see it as an earnest interest in form and colour that some of his other, more illegal, past works have been But yes, cities need beauty and color! But what would it look like if our architects were allowed more capacity for beauty in their designs? What if they had better green spaces? I don't make these demands of murals, but they can be treated a bandaid solution to deeper issues

Open ##3488857