About
Reclaim the Mural
October 2011 - October 2012
Art collective The Work in Progress (Benedict Drew, Emma Hart, Dai Jenkins, Dean Kenning, and Corinna Till) undertake research in the east London through the production of new murals.
“We start with a strong feeling that something is stagnant and wrong with the mural, and that something is potent and admirable. We want it to stop assuming who ‘we’ the community are, and what forms of visual language are accessible. We want it to quit moralising. But, we have a hunch that the mural holds its own against attempts to claim it for art. Murals occupy a point of public contact, circumventing the art world through exposure. Murals cannot claim aesthetic or avant-gardist immunity from social responsibility and the necessity to communicate more widely. Furthermore the mural eschews individualism by being collective both in its reception and production. We approach the mural’s reclamation collectively too. We believe that the mural’s resistance to ‘real art’ offers important leads that could rumble art from its own defusing, insular tendencies. We will follow these leads by making murals.”
