I don’t know if I have blogged about this before

I love having a wander around the city. Any city. I think the benefit of these big city wanders is the inspiration I receive. In a city, I am constantly getting ideas from other people. It is all inspiration I soak up from people. Architecture, art, music, protests… all human influences. A walk in the countryside often makes me look within and question our nature. Cities are filled with people interpreting that nature in a thousand different ways.

This mural on Pitt Street is an example of why I like these unplanned wanders. I have been to this corner before, ask me how I got here or how to get to it again and I wouldn’t be able to. The mural above me is a very interesting one and one I had to research.

The Peace, Justice and Unity mural was created by Public Art Squad in 1984. It was painted over in 2001 during restoration work on the building and shortly after this the group responsible for the artwork were successful in obtaining a government grant to redo it.  Bob Carr, the Premier of New South Wales at the time, said…

“The scale of the mural and its enduring themes of peace and racial harmony will once again be an important reminder of the kind of community in which we all strive to live,”

Donations for the 80’s installment and the 21st century repaint came courtesy of the local council, churches and charity organisations. So that is something new I have learned today, thanks to the internet I can do more than just look at a piece of art. I don’t like to interpret it in my own way, I prefer to know the story behind it from the artists themselves. On their website, the summary for this mural reads:

“PEACE JUSTICE & UNITY
CAN SERVE AS A STATEMENT
OF SYDNEY TO AUSTRALIA
& THE REST
OF THE WORLD”

Peace and racial harmony are the themes here, who could be mad at that?