Where ⌂ Here

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Overview

This mural was commissioned as part of a downtown development plan in Roanoke, Virginia, at the site where an old bus station used to be, right across from the Amtrak passenger platform.

I hope for this mural to encourage viewers to ask the questions - where are we coming from? Where are we going? How do we get there? 

The throughline of this design is transportation. Physically this site was most recently a bus depot, and the wall now stares straight across the street at the passenger platform for Amtrak. Roanoke’s history as a railroad nexus was seeded by this area’s longer, quieter history as a congregating point for animals around the salt marshes. Hunters would follow the game paths, those paths became roads, the roads became railroads. Now this city is an easily accessible gateway between regions, webbed with highways and train tracks. Within the city, people are moving back home, immigrant populations are globally diverse, and residents are doubling down on downtown residences. Like in many urban centers, Roanoke’s car culture is getting jostled by modern neighborhoods’ interest in bikes, walkability, and public transit. 

All these systems of movement and connection, through, to, by, around… How do we navigate them? Maps and aerial views give a high-level idea of a place, but we’ve learned to think critically about who designs them and who gets to modify the landscape. Sometimes maps themselves are a form of control; redlined real estate appraisals and sweeping development designs can cast a new definition upon a whole neighborhood. But by the same token plans for greenways and shaded tree-lined avenues also have the power to charge up an idea and improve the lives of many. 

As we move through space, we also move through time. The maps surrounding the central image represent the journey of the region, which is all ongoing and flawed even as paths are charted to serve and connect. Magical growth for some has meant catastrophic destruction for others. As we move forward, we must pay due reverence to the past and give its proper place in its current scheme of events. 

There’s a significant shift from the side images to the center: the viewpoint moves from top-down to a first-person perspective of glowing autumn foliage leading towards sunny clearing along old tracks glinting in the light. Here we move through space and time together, forward. We arrive in the present, joining many other figures finding their way jubilantly through the streets from past to future. These figures are Roanokers, parading to celebrate creativity, or showcase their heritage, or protest for their rights. Lively individual people are the motor of collective movement towards the light of possibilities still too bright to see clearly yet.

Size
40’ x 60’ // 2400 sqft

DOB
April 2025

Client
The Bower

Assisted by
Oli Begley

Photographer/s
[Named Link/s]

Instagram
Process Highlight

 

Location: 29 Cambpell Ave SE, Roanoke VA 24011

 

Inspiration & Reference

I’ve drawn inspiration and direction for this design from many Roanoke residents. Some have graciously given me their time in conversation, some have studiously recorded their experiences in articles and comments. Here are some guiding excerpts that informed this piece: 

Interviews, conversations, comments:

  • There’s a stream under Campbell Ave. It’s right underfoot but you would never know it. 

  • Current runs under your feet, the earth remembers.

  • Roanoke is ready to reach OUT to the world - “we’ve arrived”

  • When we came there was no one here, we could play kickball in the street. 

  • You find yourself out here, and there’s “nothing to do.” But there’s lots of interest in culture and an effort to have something “to do.” Especially enjoying the outdoors. 

  • Climb the mountain to look out to see what the horizon holds, nestled in the valley.

  • There’s an intricate web of connections here. This place is not as deeply divided socially as other places because there is less separation between deep urban folks and deep rural folks. 

  • We need connection north to south of the tracks, white to black. Reaching across.

  • There’s a lot going on if you know where to look - so many different special interests percolating everywhere. Communication isn’t the best, but also everyone knows everything that’s going on. 

  • “IT’S HERE” catchphrase for the city, and “Creating Every Day the Place We Want To Be” 

  • Where are we headed / Where are we at? Arrival, on the journey. We are always Becoming. 

  • We need to honor the building blocks / Honor those who have planted the seeds - we can tend and grow and continue forward. Step up, it’s your turn.

  • Roanoke is an old industry town. It has soul and character not usually seen in the younger towns. You gotta be ready for a long, complicated history - the history here isn’t manufactured. 

  • “Fairy tales are more than true - not to show that dragons are real, but that they can be defeated”

  • I feel like I'm on the ground floor of a lot of good things to come, and things are good already. You don't get that feeling of potential in places like Charlottesville, or NOVA, etc. That you're all working toward something, and small victories are a victory for the whole place. I enjoy progress and change and reimagining and evolving.

  • This place has been "up and coming" since I was 18. 

  • The bus needs to be better! We use it for everything. It is a gateway and a hindrance.

  • I came here to care for my children, for the peaceful streets and calm conditions. 

  • I finally came back to the best place I ever lived.

  • Nature is your home - consider the changing of the environment. This is your home - take care of it. 

  • “Any of these buildings can be replaced. When remaking what’s been lost, do not be peaceful but please take care.”

  • We are building this house together - where do you want to live? Together, in public, we move ourselves.

Historical touchpoints:

  • Acorn to Oak: Keep an eye on Roanoke

  • Inspirational stories of Don Pullen and Oscar Micheaux. Visionary Black men, focused on opportunity, channels for both the eager willpower of youth as well as dedicated technical expertise. Pullen embraced cross-cultural collaboration and avant-garde innovation, Micheaux focused his lens on the untold stories of Black America and championed the entrepreneurial possibilities for free Black men. Both were very young when they started pushing the world into a new shape - Pullen regularly snuck out of the house in Gainsboro as a 12yo to play on a club stage with a singer and bass player 20 years his senior. 

  • Historic aerial photograph of three small houses in the parking lot of the civic center - the longest holdouts of homeowners refusing to sell their property. Their houses were isolated by construction, parking lots, and roads. A real-life ‘Up’ scenario. The frame centers the highway dividing the civic center from the remainder of Gainsboro.

  • “Sankofa embodies the spirit and attitude of reverence for the past, reverence for one’s forebears, reverence for one’s history, and reverence for one’s elders. The mythical bird effortfully bending its neck to reach back for the abandoned but precious egg signifies the diligence and effort required to pay due reverence to the past and give it its proper place in the current scheme of events. Sankofa is a gentle admonition that even if in our arrogance we overlook the gems from the past, when we come to our senses we should be humble enough to retrace our steps and make amends. As the popular saying goes, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. So are those who do not know or respect their roots and history bound to repeat its flaws and mistakes.” - African American History Museum plaque

  • Satin Bowerbird: well-known for meticulously building a large bower decorated with small blue objects. (The apartment building adjacent to the mural is called The Bower.)

 

Execution

 

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