Kris Friesen
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Hope Round Dance Mural In Progresss
Hope Round Dance Mural Unveiling
Hope Round Dance Finished Mural
Hope Hunter was honoured with a Giants of Edmonton Mural celebrating her work with Boyle Street Community Services, which helps support those who need a hand breaking out of the cycle of homelessness and poverty with self empowerment. Hope is a mural inspired and influenced by First Nations people in Edmonton, and promotes the cultural aspects of inclusion, diversity, and putting people first.
The figures painted in a round dance weave into a striped band that is a graphic representation of the earth. As all of the people are a part of this band, they therefore belong to the earth together. Beneath the band representing the earth is another band, this time yellow with stones or eggs that each hold different family of group dynamics. The idea here is to show the cycle of birth and rebirth, or of endless possibilities .
In the middle of the the figures a medicine wheel and an eagle feather are painted, representing the Aboriginal community as the foundation for all peoples here, in Edmonton. Behind this we can see the city and the sun, which touches Hope Hunter, and through her everyone else. As Hope is holding hands with others she serves as a life line or conduit between the sun and others.
Together with the other bands, these arcs and loops show connections and communication between different people and their environments, like electrical circuits. I would also like to point out that the round dance and the arcs have openings and aren't completely closed, suggesting imperfections, just like life. I wanted to inspire viewers to act in the face of flaws, as we can always make better our lives and the lives of others.
The City of Edmonton unveiled a new mural on June 22nd, depicting Hope Hunter in the fifth installation of the Giants of Edmonton Mural program. The former Executive Director of Boyle Street Community Services, Hunter has been a voice and a support for those marginalized by poverty and racism in our city.
Hope Hunter won the respect of many Edmontonians and also won their votes through a contest conducted by 630 CHED Radio.
The Giants of Edmonton mural program is part of the City of Edmonton’s Capital City Clean Up Graffiti Management Program in partnership with 630 CHED.
This mural is just one in a series that highlights the people and the things that make Edmonton the city it is.
Previously, figures like Lois Hole and Joey Moss have been painted.
This mural, the fifth so far, was done in honour of Hope Hunter, the former executive director of Boyle Street Community Services who is a key figure in helping those struck by poverty and racism in Edmonton.
Edmontonians may look forward to seeing more murals of this kind going up and can contact 630 CHED radio if they know of anyone who, like Hunter, is a giant among us.
Joan, who gets around with a walker, is one of several aboriginal people who praise the Round Dance mural (107 Avenue and 95 Street), depicting legendary homeless advocate Hope Hunter as part of the Giants of Edmonton series. Forty six percent of Edmonton’s homeless people are aboriginal, according to a 2012 count by Homeward Trust Edmonton, a not-for-profit organization that fights homelessness. The Bissell Centre has an aboriginal mural on its side. Of Hope Hunter, Joan says, “She worked for years at the Boyle Street Co-op. She’s done a lot for us people … And I like the inukshuk with the little boy that saved the pilot, because I’m from the Northwest Territories, and I can feel for what the little kid had to go through. I know the history.”
Boyle Street Community Services is an inner city agency committed to the promotion of social inclusion and equity for people marginalized by poverty and racism, many of whom are Aboriginal. Starting as a volunteer in 1979, Hope Hunter, MSW, RSW served as director from 1989-2008.
Hope recognized each individual’s strengths, understood the challenges they faced and, with her colleagues used a people-first practice to help people chart a meaningful path from survival to wellness.
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