Page 34 - WilmU - Spring 2017

3
2
W
3
2
il
m
U
m
ag
a
z
i
n
e
W
i
lm
U
m
a
g
a
z
i
ne
This participation in public art, whether in the street wall murals and empty storefront windows, and now the installation of whole mosaic walls, is a growing focus of the organization. An open invitation is often extended to the community on its Facebook page to help with various projects. It allows local residents to meet their neighbors as they work together to beautify their surroundings. But members’ participation in community art projects helps to train them in project management and construction skills, allowing them to develop marketable
skills and earn money on their own. “For us,” says Kalmbach, “positioning our public arts is more like a jobs program.”
He’s clearly interested in providing avenues of economic opportunity. Kalmbach talks about the recent history of the city of Wilmington and what it did to its communities.
“If we take a trauma-informed approach to downtown and look at the infrastructure itself,” he says, “instead of asking, ‘What’s wrong with it?’ ask, ‘What happened to it?’” The inner city has a fascinating
story to tell, he adds. “There was the huge catastrophic event of the ’68 riots and the longest occupation of National Guard troops in any North American city that really has given us the footprint we have right now,” he says. “And then the creation of I-95, ripping out entire neighborhoods and boxing in this particular zone of inner city. And what we see over the past 40 or 50 years is flight and then also social service programs all centrally located.”
Bringing art into these areas is well intended, but in many cases, Kalmbach says, “Too often artists and
Wilmington residents work together on various works of art and in several mediums.