The new mural under the CTA Red Line viaduct at Cermak Road and South Clark Street is the first of three to encourage residents to walk between the vibrant and unique communities of Bronzeville, Chinatown and Pilsen.
The three communities of color are separated both by social and physical boundaries, say Consuela Hendricks and Angela X Lin, co-presidents and co-founders of People Matter, a nonprofit whose goal is to end racism in three to five generations.
By improving the viaducts, which often serve as geographical neighborhood boundaries, they hope to encourage residents of Bronzeville, a historically Black neighborhood; Chinatown, a historically Asian neighborhood; and Pilsen, a historically Latino neighborhood, to explore each other’s communities.
“We can walk into each other’s communities and learn,” Hendricks says.
Hendricks and Lin are passionate about improving race relations between Black, Asian and Latino communities. The mural project, titled Breaking Community Bubbles, aims to do just that.
The first mural was completed this summer on the Cermak Road border of Bronzeville and Chinatown on the south wall of the viaduct. It features a Black woman’s face that, on one half, is overlaid with flowers and sparkles and seems to disappear into the purple background. On the other side, the woman’s black hair gives way to sunflowers, with strings of gold sparkly paint coming down the wall along the cracks. Swirls of broken mirror pieces lead to an image of a tree draped with Spanish moss. Along the bottom, words from W.E.B. DuBois discuss the concept of double consciousness, what it means to hold identities as a Black person and an American.
A quote from Hendricks on the far left side of the mural reads, “The key to one’s own solidarity is not by one’s merit but one’s ability to act when injustice is in front of us. To not let the waves of racism, xenophobia and cowardice get in the way of freedom for ourselves and others. Let bigotry die in our generation or the next generation will inherit the burden of its sorrows.”
The title of this first mural is “Soul,” the women say.
People Matter was founded in 2019 and works through community organizing, housing advocacy, youth education and the arts.
In addition to being co-presidents and co-founders of People Matter, Hendricks and Lin were artists on the mural. Hendricks created the design and gave direction, while Lin “made a lot of it happen,” Hendricks says. More than 30 kids who participate in People Matter school programs helped paint the mural on the viaduct wall.
One of the challenges to the mural was painting on a wall and viaduct in need of repair. The entire mural is painted with acrylic paint, with pieces of mirror providing texture and reflection.
Lin said the decision to paint over the large cracks in the wall with gold sparkly paint was inspired by Kintsugi, a Japanese art technique of repairing broken pottery with a gold lacquer. Instead of throwing away something because it’s broken, the pieces are instead made more valuable.
“The infrastructure for a lot of these viaducts is falling apart. It’s probably not going to get fixed. That’s part of why people don’t want to walk through them,” Lin says. “We don’t want to ignore it. We want to enhance it and include it as part of the mural.”