AGA
COLLAB
📍 N/A
The Art Gallery of Alberta hosts both a youth group and a seniors group and was seeking an artist to facilitate a collaborative mural between the two.
I love collaboration, and I believe it’s essential for different generations to communicate, connect, and share their experiences.
I began by meeting with each group separately, inviting them to reflect on what intergenerational collaboration meant to them. We discussed their stylistic visions, the imagery and metaphors they wanted to explore, and what they wished the other generation understood. I gathered extensive notes and, after several drafts and rounds of feedback, developed a final image for both groups to work on together.
Over the course of a weekend, with my guidance and oversight, we created a stunning mobile mural.
Participants built the background by physically writing their responses to prompts such as:
“I wish I had…”
“How do you see the future?”
“What would you like to share with your parent, grandparent, child, or grandchildren?”
Using a projector, we transferred the final image outline onto the mural panels, and together the group brought the mural to life.
Here is our artist statement:
Knowledge is not a one-way inheritance but a living, breathing exchange—an intricate dialogue between young and old, past and future. Our mural explores this interwoven relationship through the metaphors of mycelial networks, neural pathways, and flowing rivers, each revealing how wisdom moves, evolves, and transforms.
Like mycelium threading beneath the forest floor, knowledge spreads in all directions, connecting generations in a vast and living web. Elders pass down stories, traditions, and resilience, while youth offer new perspectives, curiosity, and innovation. This reciprocal exchange mirrors the circuits in our technology and the neurons in our brains—interconnected systems that thrive on shared energy and insight.
Neurons, with their branching forms, resemble dandelion seeds, floating on unseen currents. An exhale sends seeds spiraling into the wind, knowing that some will take root in fertile ground. It is a shared wish, a collective hope for the future.
The river, ever-moving, reminds us that time does not stand still. It carries the voices of those who came before, merging with the dreams of those who are yet to come. Change is the only constant, and within that change lies the opportunity to learn, to teach, and to grow together.
Through our work, we seek to illuminate these exchanges—the wisdom of elders flowing like ancient currents, the fresh ideas of youth sparking like new growth, and the spaces where they intertwine. We are all part of a timeless conversation that shapes the world anew.
