We are thrilled to announce our plan for a new mural to be painted in the pre-school building at the Heaven School in Northern Tanzania. Along with Kristin Peterson Edwards of kpeArts, we are collaborating with Brooklyn-based Japanese artist Shinji Murakami and his gallery Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, which has a space on the Lower East Side in New York City, as well as at the CTG Collective in Harare, Zimbabwe. Murakami, whose career has exploded, is going to draft a site-specific design for this initial wall mural in the Heaven pre-school. Last year his pixelated hearts were temporarily installed on the roof of the Standard Hotel in NYC and he was commissioned by Salesforce, the US cloud-based software company, to create unique tile designs which have been installed on every floor throughout their San Francisco and NYC headquarters. The idea is for this installation to be educational, colorful and create a happy environment for the children—one with images of African animals, hearts, flowers, etc. We will also engage the children in creating this mural. What is special about Shinji’s work is the pixelation aspect of it allows the squares to filled in by anyone with a color-by-number method of painting. Once the design has been approved, we will have an on-site artist transfer the image onto the wall and then when our team is on site in April, we will have the children at St. Joseph’s Orphans Center (located on the same campus as Heaven School) help complete the painting. We also hope to create a simple coloring book for the youngest children of Heaven and St. Joseph’s, which will compliment the mural in their classroom. Stay tuned for our progress with the design and installation. We are truly excited about this project and the potential of additional murals at St. Joseph’s and across Tanzania.
An example of Shinji’s art.
Brooklyn-based Japanese artist Shinji Murakami
An installation by Shinji in San Francisco.