El Futuro, Inc.

Durham, NC

El Futuro is a volunteer-founded, nonprofit organization with a 15-year history of providing bilingual and culturally sensitive mental health services to central North Carolina’s Latinx community. Its mission is to nurture stronger families to live out their dreams. In May 2018, in order to accommodate providing more services to more families, El Futuro moved its downtown Durham clinic to the Lakewood community. Lakewood is one of Durham’s most diverse neighborhoods with one of the largest Latinx populations in the City. This new home is located within the emerging Reuse Arts District founded by their partner, the Scrap Exchange. This organization, working in collaboration with additional community stakeholders and building off of existing long-term and recent partnerships, came together to create a 2,760 square foot mural, depicting common struggles, while highlighting a shared hope for the future. Taking the artistic lead for the project was Cornelio Campos, a first-generation immigrant who is deeply rooted in Durham’s Latinx community. Through a variety of engagement strategies, this team built on a design that is a synthesizing of words, images and symbolism shared by the community. The mural is located at a gateway location within the Reuse Arts District and is adjacent to a community garden.

Libertad rendering by Cornelio Campos — *Libertad* rendering by Cornelio Campos

The following slideshow highlights the El Futuro community process from idea, to community engagement, to celebrating the completed mural project.

Situated in Durham’s Lakewood neighborhood, in the heart of its re-use arts district, El Futuro starts with an almost blank canvas. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

El Futuro launches the project with a community fiesta that incorporates creative activity stations to begin the process of gathering ideas from the community about what they would like to see in the mural. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Dorfman

Lead artist Cornelio Campos interacts with community members at the fiesta through a creative activity sponsored by Scrap Exchange, one of El Futuro’s project partners. The gathering of ideas is inspired by hands on art making together. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

Right away the community takes ownership of the project through collaboration and teamwork. Here local children lend a hand to prepare the canvas. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

Artist Cornelio Campos synthesizes community ideas to create a first draft of the rendering and here he and artist mentee Estaphanie Sanchez gather feedback from other local Latinx artists. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

The project team is committed to engaging the community and honoring community voices. Here artist Cornelio Campos, artist mentee Estephanie Sanchez, and project coordinator and El Futuro staff liaison Mary Jones, canvas the neighborhood door to door to gather feedback on their draft design. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

Further feedback is gathered when the project and design is presented at a community resource fair. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

Neighbors weigh in on the design during a community work day. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

When the painting work begins everyone is welcome. Here El Futuro Executive Director Luke Smith checks in with a young artist. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Duran

Community collaboration leads to new friendships and lots of joy. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Duran

This young artist leaves a lasting mark on her community. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Duran

Known on her block as “Abuela,” neighbor Tonnie Markham works side by side with the team. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Dorfman

From start to finish collaboration is key and here, in the home stretch, Luke and Tonnie work on some of the final touches. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Dorfman

Lead artist Cornelio Campos works on final details closer to the sky. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Dorfman

Youth capacity building was achieved on this project as Cornelio recruited local high school artist Estephanie Sanchez to serve as an artist mentee. Estephanie has been central to the team and has gained valuable public art experience. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Dorfman

Here (left to right) Estephanie, Tonnie, Cornelio and Luke pose after a satisfying day’s work on the near complete mural. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Dorfman

The completed mural sprouts its wings for the whole community to enjoy. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

The mural is rich with symbolism. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Dorfman

A favorite detail for many community members is this depiction of Lady Liberty, a symbolic representation of hope for the future. Photo courtesy of Ira Christmas Photography

Finally, it’s time to celebrate! While Covid-19 made a large gathering impossible, on November 8, 2020, El Futuro held an unveiling celebration with a small socially-distanced gathering of community members and stakeholders and provided live virtual access that was recorded for later enjoyment. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

El Futuro’s mural, Libertad, along with their community healing garden space, creates a peaceful and welcoming gathering place for the greater community to enjoy for years to come. Photo courtesy of El Futuro

The following segment premiered as a part of the PBS North Carolina Visibly Speaking series, which documents all ten Inclusive Public Art grantee projects from Cohort I.