One Blue Sky, a new educational project launched by Laura Rodgers of The Good Works Foundation, has officially completed its first endeavor, titled “Opening Lines” with the help of Michigan-based street artist Pat Perry and Samantha Robinson of aptART. As we reported in May, a statement from the One Blue Sky staff explains that “through the power of technology, the project introduces two groups of children living in markedly different places and provides them with a platform to interact.”
“Opening Lines” consists of two murals completed in separate reaches of the globe, bridging the distance between Biddeford, Maine in the United States and Soulaymaniyah, Iraq, with art and open communication. “After exchanging videos and artwork,” the organization states, “two 5th grade classes in Soulaymaniyah, Iraq and Biddeford, USA painted messages alongside Pat Perry on two new murals in both of their homes 9,091 km apart. The kids’ ideas and drawings show how their similarities far outnumber their differences, and are easily found when looking through the lens of curiosity rather than suspicion.”
Perry’s work often blends emotive figures with the abstract and surreal to emphasize the intensity of the piece’s feeling. Here, his work is somewhat subdued in the emotions it explores, though he is no less effective in conveying them. Each large-scale mural depicts a child with attributes relatively average to its locale. A girl with thick, dark hair is shown in Iraq, surrounded by colorful tapestries. In Maine, a light-haired boy in a baseball cap is shown from behind as well.
In order to get a full grasp on the murals’ many layers of meaning, viewers must have a knowledge of the project they were created for, and the ability to view them digitally, together. The children in each mural hold telephones, presumably to signify the communications students in these two locales shared. Furthermore, they gaze through metal fences that have been torn apart, highlighting how the barriers that separated these two groups of students have been destroyed. This idea is further driven home by the students’ contributions to their own respective murals. Words and drawings of their own design are included next to each figure.
It’s a beautiful sentiment for a project that successfully connected kids who might not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise. Perry’s style is idyllic, realistic yet dreamy in all the right places. It is worth noting though, I believe, that in a project intended to weaken the grip of stereotypes on society, an artist should refrain from simplifying an entire body of students down to one representative figure.
Ultimately, One Blue Sky’s triumph successfully utilizes art to “open a space for conversation, exploration and exchange.” As they say, “humans today are more globally connected than at any other time in history. The way a farmer plans her monthly budget at her kitchen table in rural Maine can depend on the stroke of a pen made by an OPEC delegate in a ministry office of Kurdish Iraq earlier that morning. With cultural overlap across the globe unavoidable, the peril of stereotype can be lessened by individual, personal acquaintances across borders; a literal face rather than an idea of one.” It’s not until we get to know someone else that we realize just how human we are ourselves.
Images by Samantha Robison & Emad Rashidi
Film by Emad Rashidi
Pat Perry: website | facebook | instagram
aptART: website | facebook | instagram
The Good Works Foundation: website | facebook
