StoryBike: Fresh Paint Mural Art Festival and Community Transformation

Posted by Brad on July 2, 2019 in Featured Posts, Projects, TechMuse Blog | 2 comments

There’s a lot packed into the title of this blog post, I know…Here’s the rundown: 42 Design Fab and I created a StoryBike to record stories at the Fresh Paint Springfield mural art festival celebrating the transformation of downtown Springfield MA. The day included nine murals and their artists, family paint activities, music, local craft beer, food trucks, and a ton of enthusiasm from community members. An amazing event, and part of an extraordinary community initiative developed by a collaborative of community organizations.

Here’s one of the videos from White Lion Brewery Founder Ray Berry, followed by other videos we recorded at the festival:

You can see the enthusiasm in the full playlist here — (check it out, you’ll be glad you did). And I can’t help but highlight this video of 42 Design Fab’s Todd Harris expertly piloting the StoryBike:

This all reminds me that the work I started with in museums is evolving into work with communities — I’m thinking of Storykiosk installations less as “museum installations” and more as “community installations.” This mirrors development among museums too as they reach to work collaboratively with positive impact in their local community. We’re eager to continue this work as we explore the intersections of community development projects, public art, and community storytelling.