Client: Mural Arts; Kirkbride Center

Location: Philadelphia, PA, United States

Completion date: 2016

Artwork budget: $55,000

Project Team

Artist

Eric Okdeh

Public Art Agent

Mural Arts

Overview

Working with the participants of the recovery program at the Kirkbride Center, this mural was designed to translate the experience of acknowledging, accepting and transcending the cycle of addiction.

Goals

Through months of collaboration with the students in recovery, we worked to tell their story. The mural not only focuses on the difficulties associated with addiction, but also the freedom that can be regained when you overcome such hardships and acknowledge all the parts of your individual path.

Process

The students in the class were painstakingly honest when telling their stories. Some of them can be accessed through QR codes that are scattered throughout the finished design. They participated fully in the design process, even lending their likenesses to the mural.

Additional Information

Contemplation, Clarity, Resilience is a project of triumphing over hardship. It took 3 months to fabricate and a week to install. The Stained Glass Mosaics are some of the more detailed and intricate works to date.