The above work shows what is known as The Mayor of Guildford's Inaugural Mural. The Mayor, Tamsy Baker has been interested in supporting a programme of diversity during her Mayoral term. This project was a collaboration between the Mayor, Guildford Borough Council and Culture South East, which also runs the Common Futures programme.
We decided to create a mural by using an Indian artform known as rangoli. Suzanne Akram, a well known artist, was commissioned to produce the mural for the Mayor's Inaugural Week. Suzanne worked on the brief provided to her and created a mural that depicts the history, traditions, landmarks and diversity of the town of Guildford, which is based in Surrey, England. It had to be expanded to a large size to involve a group of volunteers from the community, who also completed the mural.
The next task was to fill in the colours! This was achieved by using grains, seeds and coloured dust to fill the spaces in the mural and by attaching the materials to the mural boards with a glue. The volunteers and artists worked on the mural for a day and they completed the mural in time for the Mayor's Inaugural Reception. The Mayor was presented with the mural. It is essentially a large rangoli! It is a unique celebration of community input into ephemeral arts. An explanation of the mural's content is available on request. Please email me at kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com
