Kristina Kraani, youth work specialist at Anne Youth Centre, looks back at the completion of the Anne Youth Centre kitchen mural.
One somewhat grey morning, an artist named Arte Seifo entered the Anne Youth Center. Besides a box of ideas, he also brought several different acrylic paints, brushes, and a large compass to draw dynamic circles on the wall. The mission was to create a colorful mandala on the kitchen wall by the end of the evening.
We, the youth workers, enthusiastically began preparations to ensure that the initial arrangements were made before the young people arrived, as creating a mural takes a considerable amount of time. We also decided to film the entire process so we could have our first TikTok video for our page.
During the painting session, young people learned various techniques for applying paint to the wall and systematically drawing lines of the appropriate thickness. It wasn't the easiest task at first, as the brush tended to go its own way, but everyone managed well in the end. During the drawing, Seppo talked about how he got into his profession and what an everyday life of a freelance artist looks like. By the end of the evening, our wall featured a large mandala in sunset colors, with the quote „Be the energy you want to attract“ on it. The young people thought it could now be used as a photo wall, and so we did. We believe that looking at the mandala will give us all more good energy in the future and bring out the sun from behind the clouds even more.
