Urban Harmony: Edmonton School Mural

Urban Harmony is the sister mural of Natural Harmony at the Aurora Charter School in Edmonton, Alberta. Teachers, parents, and myself, as the mural artist wanted to strike the imagination of students using technology, architecture, fantasy, and nature inspired by the southern hemisphere, where the sky has Aurora Australis, not Aurora Borealis (the school's name sake). This educational mural is in a large stairwell and has a 270 degree view, with three different sufaces, and was designed as a triptych with three windows. Ascending the stairs, viewers start below water, moving up to land and new heights with the towers and architecture of Australia, and finishing the ascent at with an active southern sky.

Students are seen learning cool new skills, like surfing and wizardry, to plant the mental seeds of learning as a lifestyle. All of the architecture and cityscape elements are based on real buildings and sites from Australia and Brazil to entice viewers with notions of travel and all that other countries have to offer. The signs on buildings contain slogans like “Knowledge Emporium”, “Growth”, “Ambition”, “Ideals”, “Discipline”, and even a light bulb with “I Can” below it. Placing these important attributes on buildings in place of company names suggests that important life skills can be worked for and achieved as their own currency, in the same way we work for and achieve things with money.

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