Trapeze Artists in the Mission

 Posted by on July 30, 2012
Jul 302012
 
The Mission
Hoff and 16th Streets
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Bending Over Backwards by Susan R. Green 2010
This mural is part of the Break the Silence Mural and Arts Program. It is the beginning of a truly monumental mural project that will connect San Francisco’s Mission District with SOMA.  According to the website:

Bending Over Backwards (BOB) is a collaborative community, interactive and interdisciplinary project of re-membering and creating histories of the Mission and SOMA. BOB explores the high wire act that thriving in today’s world can be, providing visual and audio metaphors for the tenacious, exhilarating and daring flights made in the attempt to realize one’s dreams in San Francisco in the 21st century.

Trapeze artists (painted on wood cut-outs and attached to the wall) are pictured in two neighboring places in San Francisco: the Mission and SOMA. The figures are shown in an electrifying peak moment of their craft, embodying a mixture of whimsy, pathos and a sense of extraordinary possibility in their gravity-defying feat. The trapeze artists’ success is possible only with great discipline, communication, strength, teamwork, vision and humor; echoing some of the skills necessary for a viable life in the city of San Francisco. (The SOMA portion has not yet been completed).

Susan Green is a visiting professor at the San Francisco Art Institute. According to their website: Susan Greene is an artist, educator and clinical psychologist. Her practice straddles a range of arenas, new media, and public art; focusing on borders, migrations, decolonization, and memory. Through these projects Greene researches the intersections of trauma, creativity, resilience and resistance. Recently Greene has developed interdisciplinary site-specific projects that make use of social networking technologies and cell phone audio programs. Greene’s projects stretch from the streets and prisons of the USA to refugee camps of Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza. She is a founding member of Break the Silence Mural and Art Project and has a psychotherapy practice in San Francisco.

The bottom line of this reads: To Political Prisoners Everywhere. In Memory of Jon Kaplan and Tricia Sullivan. To Hear The Mural Speak – 415- 325-4474.

  8 Responses to “Trapeze Artists in the Mission”

  1. Wonderful energy and excitement in this mural! I love the concept of BOB. Susan Green sounds like a fascinating person.

  2. Wonderfully done – great project!

  3. Another great mural…thanks for sharing.

  4. I love it. The title is interesting . Best to you.

  5. Love the motion and the color. I almost feel like they’re going to swing over and catch me!

  6. I like this very much. It’s a great project. The drawings are stark and dramatic. Thanks for the close-up. It looks like some of the rope has frayed and broken, which would make this leap very scary!

  7. Simply amazing. The artwork itself has me gasping in awe and suspense but the history and story behind the piece is so compelling I want to immediately go in search of the companion piece.

  8. Oh what fun! I just love her hair!

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