Quilt-like design has voiced HCN family’s individual and collective concerns

PROPOSAL OF VOICES MURAL during Fall 1996

Voices is a mural project sponsored by Miami's Health Crisis Network Client Advisory Board (HCN-CAB) in collaboration with artist Xavier Cortada. Cortada, an HCN Board of Directors member, will serve as artistic director of the participant-driven mural. The mural, to be created in the Fall of 1996, will include artistic input from members of the HCN family: clients, staff, Board of Directors and other volunteers. Client Advisory Board (HCN-CAB) members will use the Voices mural not just as a means of articulating their message about AIDS, but as a vehicle to better interact with and understand their fellow clients, and other members of the HCN family.

The conceptualization of the mural is currently underway (Fall 1996). HCN-CAB is determining the theme and composition. Thus far, there is consensus to create the mural on five 8' x 4' sheets of plywood--side by side a 8' x 20' mural will be created. The mural will be created in the HCN training room with materials donated by Cortada and contributions from HCN donors and volunteers.

Large sections of the mural will be set aside and divided into spaces a foot by a foot long. Members of the HCN family will be asked to individually fill these spaces with their own voice: drawings, paintings, collages of pictures and words, weavings, miniature quilts, neon, even three-dimensional objects affixed to the wall. HCN-CAB will determine guidelines for the creation of the 1' x 1' individual pieces and the process through which these individual pieces will be collected and incorporated into the mural.

Other areas will be left open for interested members of the HCN family to join the artist and members of the HCN-CAB in painting. The renderings in the larger areas will be images that try to capture and convey the collective voice of the HCN family. This theme will be develop in subsequent meetings.