Welcome to the Malden River
Commissioned by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council through the Greater Malden Asian American Community Coalition, Shaina Lu and I facilitated a community process to paint a welcome sign to encourage residents to use and access the Malden River.
photo credit: Julianne Orsino, Malden community member
Community Process
We led a word cloud with local youth at the Wah Lum Kung Fu and Tai Chi Academy Malden. From their ideas and sketches, we created a final design to be painted live at a community event with youth and community members. During this process, we found that there were two ideas the youth valued: 1. Access to the Malden river should be inclusive and diverse and 2. The river should be represented by a dragon. I designed an eastern dragon with blocky shapes and multicolored scales to be painted by the community.
photo credit: Mai Du, Wah Lum Kung Fu and Taichi Academy Sifu
photo credit: Mai Du, Wah Lum Kung Fu and Taichi Academy Sifu
From initial stages to the final installation:
