New Mural Proposed for Mothership

The south wall of Mothership, a blank canvas for a future mural?

At Wednesday’s ANC 1A meeting, the Commission voted in favor of providing a letter of support to local artist Nekisha Durrett for a proposed mural she is working on to be located on the south wall of Mothership (northeast corner of Lamont & Georgia). You can learn more about Ms. Durrett and see samples of her work on her Web site.

It’s very early in the process, so there aren’t any drawings of what the mural will end up looking like yet.

But … to give you an idea of the direction the design is taking, below is the current concept statement providing the framework for the work.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Fall In Line, by Nekisha Durrett

In 1975, the funk band Parliament paid tribute to the, then, predominately African-American Washington, DC with a record entitled Chocolate City which envisioned African-Americans overtaking the White House.  The follow up record Mothership Connection (Starchild) imagined African Americans deeper into unchartered territory – outer space.  The albums were wildly successful, especially in Washington  – “the Chocolate City and its vanilla suburbs.”  Nearly forty years later, DC has seen tremendous change demographically with the population nearing a 50/50 racial split between white and black residents – garnering both negative and positive opinions.

Seated in the center of Washington, DC in the Park View neighborhood of Northwest, the eclectic diner Mothership is as funky as the concoctors of its namesake, Parliament. The apt name and location of this neighborhood haunt, has inspired the large scale graphic mural by Nekisha Durrett Fall In Line.  In keeping with prevalent themes related to the ubiquity of popular media and storytelling throughout Durrett’s work, Fall In Line pictures a succession of gargantuan, cartoon inspired beings of various sorts waiting to board their homebound “mothership.” This playful work aspires to celebrate the diversity of the surrounding Park View neighborhood while harkening back to a time in the city’s history that could be overlooked in the bustling swell of development and change.