On the 16th and 17th October SAMA team got the opportunity to make a collaboration with the muralist artist Alaniz from Argentina. Alaniz is known across the world for his distincitve style and this is his 4th artwork in Amsterdam Nieuw-West, as he accepted to participate in the Food4Smiles initiative. The few days of participatory artwork creation were under the signs of sharing, peace, engagement and art. Even with the Covid-19 restrictions whereby we were not allowed to get close to the citizens of the district, the project has managed to remain social and collective. Here is a summary of the good times.
In order to ensure maximum visibility of the artwork and deliver the message to the target audiences - families with children under 2 years old - we decided to remaster the wall of the DOCK, which faces the popular playground.
The artworks depicts the goal of the project #HetEerste1000Dagen and shows the life cycle of a child. Alaniz chose to paint three important stages of the childhood: the pregnancy, the infancy and the beginning of childhood. He associated it with symbolisms of life across the leaves and the flowers, which in turn where subject of the series of workshops with local mothers.
It is something which Alaniz specialises in - connecting people with nature. Effectively, he entrusted us with that for him:
I use people and plants because that is how I feel about the mural art, like something organic. That is something that brings life. Art in certain ways is a form to bring, and street art or mural art it’s a form to bring life back to cities or places that are empty or there are missing the touch of love and art. If I had to say something about the neighbourhood around here that it’s a nice place to live but without the mural that we have by the Street Art Museum Amsterdam, from SAMA, you definitely miss the love, without the mural you will feel the difference.
His message resonates with the SAMA's mission in Nieuw-West and the objectives of the collaboration with Food4Smiles. Supported by Fred Foundation, the social project of #Food4Smiles projects helps the local communities. During this special period due to the Covid-19 restrictions, the social aspect of life is put to the test. Art and culture can be the way to continue to show people that they are not alone and that life continues. In this way, this artwork is the fruit of a collaboration between the artist and people. From the first side, directly with some people invited to paint and from the other side, directly with the locals curious in front of the artwork.
To go all the way, the name La Vida has been chosen in a group.
It was the first time that I painted on a wall in a street. I really appreciated the sharing during this time. Not just from an artistic way but also from sharing with people passing by and interested in what we were doing or asking questions.
You can read more about the project here: https://issuu.com/westerpost/docs/westerpost_28_oktober_2020lr
