You may have heard of the Nashville Walls Project or the 2017 documentary Saving Banksy. Well, Brian Greif, owner and co-founder of 2:32 AM Projects played an important role in getting both projects off the ground – and very successfully, I might add. Greif is an art enthusiast who feels that street art and graffiti are equally important movements – primarily because both art forms can be found in just about every major city in the world, and then some. He’s been involved in public art projects in San Francisco and Miami and continues to promote the mid-south as a space for public art projects and exhibitions. His latest project involves international artist Faith XLVII, who recently completed Unbound Mural Project for UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.
Faith XLVII is well-known; not only for her artistic style, but for using her artwork to express the complexities of the human condition and our ‘interconnectedness’. Her creative process has her using found and rescued objects, shrine construction, painting, projection mapping, video installation, printmaking and drawings. Faith describes her latest mural, The Unbound, as “an ode to the Peace Manifesto, an almost archetypal cry for ceasefire revisited throughout history by various groups and organizations.” She uses the symbol of the white flag in various stages of motion to give weight to these simple truths that are important now, more than ever. The poetic verses found beneath each flag are adapted from The Cosmic Doctrine by Dion Fortune. The words speak of an existential search, as this is the root of our suffering and confusion:
– Avalon of the Heart
– The Building of the Atom
– The Beginnings of Consciousness
– The Beginnings of Mind
– The Creation of a Universe Evolution
– Upon the Cosmic Planes
– Influences upon Humanity
– The Natural Laws
– The Law of Polarity
– Influences Acting on Human Evolution
– The Law of Action and Reaction
– The Evolution of Form and Mind
– The Evolution of Consciousness
– The Evolution of a Solar System
– Developing the Power to Communicate Thoughts
– The Manifested Universe
Faith further describes her inspiration to create this mural:
“The Unbound thematic is born from my personal feelings of frustration of the social-political context of today. Watching the disharmony, the dismantling of human rights and the continuous struggle for equality is exhausting. The only way I can keep going is if I can transform some of this into my work. The work stems from a place of discontent and begs the question, what direction are we headed in? I spent time researching the symbolism of the white flag as well as the history of the Peace Manifesto. Peace Manifestos have taken many forms, with voices spanning from the scientist protesting the use of the atom bomb, to Greenpeace and worker parties to women’s rights associations. We formulate our own manifesto, keeping the perspective as inclusive as possible. For me, the main objective is empathy. The location of the mural is in the heart of the Tenderloin. This is a very desperate corner of San Francisco with meth being dealt openly and heroine being injected right there on the pavement. Spending the week there was deeply saddening and further entrenched the significance of how much work needs to be done.”
The mural covers two sides of a building that’s located at the corner of Golden Gate Avenue and Hyde Street in downtown San Francisco.
