Completion Of “Greetings” Mural Kicks Off The Little Saigon Public Art Project

On Saturday, February 3 a “Greetings” mural was completed in the Little Saigon District, which spans from Highland Avenue to Euclid Avenue in El Cajon.

The completion of this mural, which is filled with traditional Vietnamese culture, is the kick off to a larger, very cool Little Saigon Project that aims to install ten to twenty public art pieces over the next year.

The Little Saigon Project is a collaboration between the San Diego Art Institute, Media Arts Center, Aja Project, El Cajon Boulevard BIA and the Little Saigon Foundation.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeoCcPKnq1a/?taken-by=elcajonboulevard

The Little Saigon District is the central hub for the local Vietnamese community in San Diego. Coming through Camp Pendleton during the Vietnamese war, refugees resided in this area of town and made it home.

With 70 percent of the businesses in Little Saigon owned by Vietnamese-Americans, this area reflects the rich Vietnamese culture in San Diego.

The San Diego Art Institute, backed by the support of the Creative California Communities Grant from the California Arts Council that they received, will be curating and installing ten to twenty site-specific artworks including murals, sculpture, light boxes and other mediums – all created by local artists to celebrate the Vietnamese culture in San Diego. Each work will be inspired by real-life stories being collected by Little Saigon art partners, Media Arts Center and Aja Project.

In an effort to showcase the strong Vietnamese influence in Little Saigon, this project provides a non-traditional outlet for regional artists from all cultural backgrounds to work with the voices from the Little Saigon community to create specific installations in storefront settings, crosswalks, building walls and other public spaces while promoting the benefits of a walkable community and developing a strong, symbiotic relationship between art, community and commerce.

San Diego Art Institute’s new deputy director, Sarah Trujillo-Porter, is the project curator. She will work with Circulate San Diego and the El Cajon Boulevard BIA to identify sites in February and March.

A call for artists will be conducted in March and April and then artists will be selected and paired with their real-life stories and sites between May and September. The development of the site-specific projects will take place September through December.

The Little Saigon Project is expected to be complete January 2019. We can’t wait to see the final result!