An excerpt from a reflection assignment for MICA
Upon entering the city of Estelí one can feel its character viscerally. Despite our urban setting, lush green mountains remain visible to the east and west. The streets are lined with vibrantly painted homes, and businesses are covered with carefully rendered illustrations advertising the goods sold within. Every surface is like a thoroughly worked canvas, rich with color, pattern and texture. It seems as though the people of Estelí possess an innate sense of color and composition. While I came to Estelí knowing that it is home to a rich community of artists, I had no idea that artistic acuity would be so deeply infused in the culture of its people. Never before have I seen such striking and pervasive visual culture.
For me, one of the most striking features of this city is the hand painted signs and murals. Text and image are applied directly to the city’s architecture, becoming part of the visual landscape, rather than intruding on it like modern advertising in the United States. I can’t help but picture the skyline of Boston from the upper deck of 93, now cluttered with at least a dozen Clear Channel billboards advertising everything from the local YMCA to Miller Light. Even walking down the street in Boston, and every other city I have traveled to, the landscape is littered with visual communication that is completely at odds with its surroundings. While every surface in Estelí is saturated with color, texture and pattern it is never jarring. As a designer I find this continuity between culture and visual language fascinating. Even logos for modern goods and services have been skillfully translated into this language. Seeing these familiar symbols rendered in this way throws my sense of time and place off kilter. In general Estelí is a fascinating mélange of past and present, where horse drawn wagons plod down streets lined with cyber cafes.
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