Amplify Akron

In September of 2017, Art x Love hosted more than 800 Akron residents at the Amplify Akron Collaborative Mural District, in the city’s Middlebury neighborhood for two days of collaborative painting. The event proved so successful that it was expanded to afford another month of community participation with local school children and community groups.

Art x Love was awarded a Knight Cities grant in 2017 for the @PLAY Akron project, which explored every street in all 24 Akron neighborhoods, and conducted thousands of street intercept interviews to gain resident and visitor perspectives about what would improve quality of life in each area. Akron’s historic Middlebury neighborhood was the first one our team assessed and activated. It was clear from our research that residents wanted more colorful murals and positive messages across the neighborhood. Specifically, residents wanted more images of strong black leaders in their environment.

Art x Love’s team worked with residents of all ages to develop more than 20 mural concepts for residents to collaborative paint and bring to life, including a wall of dogs, Middlebury pride mural, portraits of famous black East Akron leaders, a Beautiful floral mural, a phoenix rising from a lake of fire, and free walls for community expression. We secured permission to transform a vacant lot in the heart of the neighborhood into our collaborative mural district, and built temporary freestanding mural walls on site for the community. Once everything was ready, we returned to all 54 of the neighborhood basketball hoops we’d found and left custom-designed @PLAY Akron basketballs under each with an invitation to join us at Amplify Akron.

Over the course of six weeks, thousands of residents and visitors came to Middlebury to participate in collaborative painting sessions. As panels became full and saturated, we created new mural designs to keep the energy and production flowing. Each mural panel was then completed by local artists in our studio for installation across the neighborhood. Every single one of these modular murals remains intact and stands as a powerful point of pride for the community.

Amplify Akron inspired a wave of community art initiatives and collaborative murals across northeast Ohio. While visiting Akron for a speaking engagement, New York City’s Parks & Recreation Commissioner took interest and followed our progress withe @PLAY Akron project, proclaiming it “one of the best examples of creative community engagement I have ever seen.”