Isidro Pérez García
“El círculo de la vida / Circle of Life” is a community mural project at El Sol Science & Arts Academy in Santa Ana, which I worked on for 8 months during 2021, working with my collaborator Adriana Sánchez Alexander. When the school approached us with the idea of doing a community mural with their elementary school students in the middle of a pandemic – and with all of the kids doing distance learning from their homes at that point – we had to ask ourselves what it would mean to paint a community mural from a “social distance.” This meant not only thinking about how to do the project safely, but also how to acknowledge and have a conversation about the situation and not ignore it.
We started in February with a temporary wheatpaste mural with the theme of “birds.” We invited students from the art classes to paint (from home) illustrations of birds that we see around us in Santa Ana and turn in their art to the school. We then created a wheatpaste mural using the students’ birds, which stayed up for several months.
This temporary mural was a placeholder while we went through a “question-per-week” process with the students – facilitated online by the teachers – where we asked them to submit answers to questions such as, During the pandemic, what changed? What never changed? How have I changed? Taking the students’ answers to these questions, we came up with a mural design that incorporated some of their ideas about masks, learning online, feelings of separation and sadness, and wanting to be together again.
During summer school, with the school’s help to follow safety protocols, we were able to paint with small groups of students. The design had already been traced onto the wall, and each student was given a station where we would show them how to paint. Over three weeks, all of the second-, third-, and fourth-grade classes at the school were able to add to the mural.
Finally, in August and September we added the finishing touches to the mural, including bilingual poems. The mural dedication reads: “Queremos dedicar este mural a la comunidad, que en tiempos difíciles sigue recordando y soñando.” (We want to dedicate this mural to the community, who in difficult times keeps remembering and dreaming.) After a delay, we will finally be able to have a mural celebration together with everyone on March 6th. Everyone is invited here!
Isidro Pérez García is a borderless artist from Santa Ana, CA and Atotonilco El Grande, Hidalgo, México. He is interested in how his art work and practice can contribute to anti-colonial histories and narratives. He works in drawing, painting, sculpture, performance, and also community work. You can follow his work on Instagram at @chiloteeeee.
