Richmond-based artist Hamilton Glass wasn’t just upset about the George Floyd killing by police in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. He was upset about the nation’s reaction to it.
“I was getting really frustrated about why so many people were now seeing this…as different,” Glass says in the 2020 documentary Mending Walls. “It’s been carnage after carnage after carnage, and I was upset about it.”
Glass reached out to fellow artist Matt Lively early last summer. Glass is Black. Lively, white. They had a conversation that inspired Glass to launch a project bringing together 32 artists to create 16 outdoor murals in 16 weeks—all in an effort to connect and heal the interracial wounds opened by the tragic events of May 25.
At about the same time that Glass sat down with Lively, Richmond-based filmmaker Pam Hervey was looking for her own way to process and respond to Floyd’s murder. She heard about the mural project and set about producing the documentary Mending Walls in real time.
“They wanted to create something for the city that was a reflection of their conversation,” Hervey says. “We tried to tell the story of how they were able to accomplish that—the deep connections that emerged. In a lot of cases, the artists working together didn’t even know each other.”
Produced and directed by Hervey for 19Red, Mending Walls features the team on-scene with Glass, Lively, and the others artists as they create each of the racial justice-focused murals that emerged around Richmond in the summer of 2020. The film includes conversations with the artists, as well as striking visuals as each of the works comes to life.
“The documentary is not about art but about getting to know each other,” Hervey says. “It’s about understanding where we come from.”
Mending Walls
Culbreth Theatre
October 28