Mehdi Ghadyanloo's Spaces of Hope is a mural in downtown Boston that depicts the power of collective hope. Ghandyanloo was born and raised in Iran and has painted many murals in the capital city of Tehran, often capturing the essence of nature in an attempt to break up the grey, lifeless aesthetic of such a populated and polluted city.
This particular mural communicates the importance not of nature, but of hope. There are hundreds of individuals, each carrying a balloon which represents hope. As they walk through the darkness, they have only their own isolated hope, but as they reach the top of the spiral staircase and walk into the light, the balloons combine to form one much larger one. I interpreted this to mean that the combined hope of many people is more powerful than that of just one, but everyone still must carry their own hope to contribute otherwise there would be nothing to rise up into the light.
This mural, like many of Gjadyanloo's, is able to use color and dimension to portray the space and light of the scene in a hyper-realistic way. This hyper-realism not only makes the mural appealing to look at, it also adds to the ambiguity of it's message. The balloons themselves are the brightest colors present, emphasizing their importance and immediately drawing the observer's eye to the enormous balloon at the top; this sets an optimistic tone for the entire piece because the journey depicted obviously ends in light and happiness.
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