Community participation is an integral part the public art-making process. Mural content is derived from the contributions (articles, artifacts, images, letters, stories and narratives) of the community members for and about whom the work is constructed. These contributions may be inserted directly into the final piece (in the case of photographs, for example) or used by the artists to generate the overarching metaphors of the stories of the piece (i.e. in the case of personal narratives or letters). SPARC and the Digital/Mural Lab archive all aspects of research. These artifacts may be published on the web, maintained in by-appointment archives and/or used for later projects. For example, in the case of the Guadalupe Mural Project, collected images from the farm-workers’ community reside locally on our servers and are available for new works and study. They are available to scholars and professors for research purposes. Please call (310) 822-9560 to schedule an appointment.
Each production also creates a database of photographic references, film, painted imagery, and text that can be used by artists, scholars, historians, professors and students for research.