Forecast Consulting hired by The Ordway to enliven a construction area with public art

A colorful, new interactive mural is mounted to the construction fence on two sides of Rice Park in downtown Saint Paul, MN!

The nearby Ordway Center for the Performing Arts hired Forecast’s experienced Consulting and Creative Services team to enliven the fence with public art during renovation of the park. The resulting interactive mural was in place on the fence in time for the 2018 Flint Hills Family Festival in early June. Forecast commissioned Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra and Xilam Balam of Electric Machete Studios—a Saint Paul-based art and music collective—to design and produce the piece.

Electric Machete’s Dreamscape Mural features indigenous Mayan glyphs, a starry nightscape, and rabbits hopping over the moon—a representation of creativity in Mayan folklore. Along with the mural’s acrylic watercolor washes and graffiti-influenced line drawings, the project incorporates several chalkboard elements offering interactive opportunities for passersby.

Rabbits were a repeating motif at the 2018 Flint Hills Family Festival. The festival also included a public installation of Amanda Parer’s Intrude, which we wrote about in our magazine Public Art Review issue 55 in 2016; giant inflatable rabbits reference the interplay of the cute fairytale creature with the environmental issue of invasive species.

The festival celebrated imagination and exploration through June 2, and the mural is slated to remain on site through the summer of 2018.