By Alliance Communications Coordinator Amy Durr
Mona Caron stunning, transformative multi-story murals celebrating the rebellious resilience of plants most of us uproot and toss. “Often considered ugly or undesirable, Caron’s works celebrate the strength and determination of weeds and advocate for recognizing their worth,” according to Colossal. “It takes closeness to the earth to harvest its blessings; it takes traditional knowledge to know the best way to. Let’s honor this wisdom which persists at the grassroots of this bursting metropolis, against all pressures to uproot,” shares Caron.
Caron’s WEEDS project incorporates community resilience: “The pieces integrate my long-standing social practice of direct, street-level, spontaneous community participation in my murals, actively ‘feeding’ the weeds metaphor at its root.” In fact, she calls much of her work “art-ivism,” and frequently works with on-the-ground social movements. In 2018, Caron painted Indigenous women in Ecuador, protectors of our endangered habitat from extractivist projects, and the featured women participated in creating the mural while Caron joined their protest.
A single Joe Pye weed with barbed leaves and a blossoming head looms over Jersey City in another staggering mural by Caron. Commissioned as part of the Jersey City Mural Arts Program, the exquisitely rendered flower is a celebration of resilience as it “rises with the sun, facing off the skyline across the Hudson,” Caron writes on Instagram. “A vision of nature winning, of plants being the ones towering over us for a change, putting us back in our place. May we learn. May they come back.”
Mona Caron exemplifies the power of an artist to both transform our world and our world-view. She single-handedly shows us that we can beautify blighted urban landscapes and boring buildings with life-enhancing energy and artwork. Shifting perspective, suggesting, inciting and supporting action, and leading to enduring change is why the Alliance considers art such an essential component of sustainability.