A Very Special Celebration
In 2017, Art x Love partnered with Ardmore and Theatre on the Spectrum to produce an accessible collaborative mural for their “A Very Special Celebration” holiday event. This mural was designed to people wheelchair accessible and inclusive for people of all ages and abilities.
The event consisted of a series of theatrical performances, and during each break the mural was designed to transition to a different type of creative application. It began as a sticker collage, then transitioned into a coloring and writing tableau, and finally concluded as a collaborative painting.
The completed mural was preserved exactly as participants left it, and was later installed outside the Balch Street Recreation Center, in Akron’s West Hill neighborhood.
This was part of Art x Love’s @PLAY Akron project, a 2017-2018 Knight Cities Challenge winning initiative to bring diverse people together and encourage deeper community connections. Art x Love’s team explored every street in the City of Akron, conducted thousands of street intercept resident interviews, and produced more than 100 murals and 50 placemaking transformations in 18 months.
