IN HOMAGE TO THE WALL OF RESPECT MURAL & TO AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN, KNOWN & UNKNOWN

2017
CAMILLE PERROTTET (designer/lead artist), RIKKI ASHER, MARIA DOMINGUEZ, KRISTIN REED

Welling Court (30th Avenue & 12 Street), Astoria, Queens, NY
8’ x 12’, aerosol, acrylic on brick
Ad Hoc Art/Welling Court Mural Project

Photos © Camille Perrottet

In 2013, three radical Black women – Patrice Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi – founded Black Lives Matter (BLM) in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman who, in 2012, murdered the 17-year old Florida youth Trayvon Martin. Now a member-led global network of 40-plus chapters, BLM organizes and builds local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.

Camille painted the Black Lives Matter founders as well as Maya Angelou and physicist Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson. Rikki painted Sojourner Truth. Maria painted Nina Simone. Kristin Reed painted Kara Walker.

The mural also honors Chicago’s Wall of Respect which in 2017 celebrated its 50th anniversary. Painted in 1967 on the city’s South Side by 14 artists and photographers from the Organization of Black American Culture, it has been long acknowledged as the mural that ushered in the Contemporary Community Mural Movement. Artists and community residents together identified the 50 Black heroes to honor: activists, statesmen, musicians, dancers, actors, writers and athletes.

Established in May 2010 and coordinated by Ad Hoc Art, under the director of Garrison Buxton, the Welling Court Mural Project was conceived to help local residents, led by Jonathan Ellis, spruce up their neighborhood.  Each year, approximately 150 street artists from NYC and around the world return to create a new mural on their assigned wall, their work filling the residential streets that radiate from Welling Court and 30th Avenue.