About this mural

This mural has three components:

1. The mural component

2. An augmented reality layer (to be viewed in the park through mobile devices.)  

3. Community Engagement program

4. Website

   The mural depicts natural scenes of nature: trees, sky, clouds, wind, sun, water, wind and mountains.

   The augmented reality layer depicts custom animations including poems written by the community, content from interviews with diverse community members and local movement artists engaged in such as Tai Chi, Kung Fu, Lion Dancing, Fan Dancing and other cultural arts that help keep Chinatown one of SF’s richest treasures.

   The engagement program is a strategy that CAS will use to build poetry and AR content. We plan to interview community members to learn what peace means and include their words as augmented reality.

5. Website. All elements of this project will be recoded and displayed for posterity on its own website that includes all the interviews, augmented reality content and calligraphy for display, so that anyone in the world can see it.

Augmented Reality

This mural is accompanied by an augmented reality layer. Augmented Reality is content content that is visible through mobile devices. Our team will layer the mural with animations of calligraphy by local artists floating by like clouds, local movement artists doing their art on the park grounds, and animals such as the phoenix and others flying through the air. This will be a window into a richer vision of Chinatown and Chinese-American culture.

Specifically, we plan to include augmented reality animations featuring local Tai Chi, Lion Dance and fan dance artists from the community. The man in this video here was born and raised in the apartment building across the street. Their avatars will be placed into the park as depicted.

The public will be interviewed as to what is their concept of peace and how it is established/maintained. These interviews will be turned into calligraphy poems by local calligraphy artists and turned into augmented reality poems (also previously depicted). The new change is that now, animated calligraphy will be designed to float by on the clouds as if blown by wind. An example of this is found on the following page as well.

Calligraphy

To be inked by local calligraphy masters from the Gold Mountain Society (or other local masters TBD) there will be custom poems flying through the space as though made of clouds. One such couplet written by artist Hoover reads: 培養無為自然 / 彰顯力量成長. This translates to (Cultivating nature’s inaction / Displaying strength and growth). It is a poem about Taoist principals of ultimate flow and is Hoover’s personal interpretation of “being at peace”. This text references the principal of “WuWei” or “effortless action”, a supreme value of Chinese traditional philosophy. This calligraphy connects visually to the Wang Bo poem in the granite medallion in the center of the park titled “Tectonic Mélange”. 

Composition and Color

• The work’s composition is designed to be stable, and serene. The tones are muted and reflect natural elements.

• The work is primarily painted in gentle blues, with mountain elements in a range of browns. The fog in the distance and in the foreground is a subtle layer of white, that feathers and girls around. This work mixes western modernist painting and the classical 山水 landscape genre. The tree on the cliff stands firm and true, ancient and ever reaching. The clouds swirl a movement pattern from bottom left to upper right providing a ladder for the eye to climb. The distant mountain expresses a clarity of intention meant to convey a peaceful person’s unshakable determination. As the classical Chinese painting masters sought to turn away from worldly affairs and pursue a new level of spiritualty through academic and intellectual refinement, this mural seeks to frame the concept of “peace” as a state of being unperturbed by a potentially tumultuous environment.

What is Peace?

• At the core of this project is the question “What is peace?”. This mural design for the Woh Hei Yuen park responses to this question. Our goal is to speak with the community and ask this question and record/share the answers. 

  •       Peace is connection, compassion, and equity. 

  •       Peace manifests as traditions that uplift and empower.

  •       Peace is having a humble and respectful relationship with nature and the divine.

  •       Peace is having a supportive and thriving community.