How one man brought safety to a working class Guanajuato neighborhood

I’m surrounded by murals of feathered warriors, dynamic Aztec women, and vibrant flowers. This tiny plazita successful Guanajuato’s working-class Pardo vicinity is simply a jungle of color, made adjacent much charismatic by a clump of inviting benches and Guanajuato’s signature pinkish cantera chromatic pavement. I beryllium down connected 1 of the benches and instrumentality photos, enjoying the unexpected remainder aft an hr of climbing steep alleys. 

Although Guanajuato is celebrated for its landscaped squares, assemblage architecture, and flower-filled lanes, this aforesaid charm and quality bash not widen to its poorer barrios, which tin beryllium littered with graffiti and trash. Pardo, a historical vicinity of crisscrossing alleys connected a elevation supra the Mercado Hidalgo, is not 1 of the instagrammable areas of the city, truthful this tiny plaza came arsenic a delightful astonishment to me. Ever since discovering it, I’ve taken locals and visitors to spot this municipality mini-retreat.

Artist Guillermo Torres posing with 1 of his murals. (Louisa Rogers/Guillermo Torres)

I precocious learned that the murals, not lone successful the plazita but passim the neighborhood, were portion of a task called “Cuatro Vientos” (Four Winds), launched by a section nonmigratory and creator during the pandemic. “Cuatro Vientos” is the sanction of 1 of the alleys successful Pardo.

In effect to increasing delinquency and crime, the residents had formed a committee to code the issue. The metropolis had responded to their concerns by installing paving stones and benches successful the plazita, but robberies continued.

At a “vigilancia” (neighborhood watch) meeting, 1 of the residents, Guillermo Torres, projected coating artwork connected the walls arsenic a mode to amended information successful the neighborhood. He suggested archetypal covering immoderate graffiti and pack propaganda connected walls, followed by creating murals. Torres understood intuitively what municipality sociologists person proven: that removing graffiti enhances a vicinity by improving nationalist safety, deterring vandalism, and fostering assemblage pride. And though removing graffiti is an important archetypal step, coating a mural is adjacent better, due to the fact that it makes the country consciousness welcoming and walkable.

However, the different residents astatine the gathering were skeptical. Although they knew Torres arsenic a neighbor, they didn’t cognize helium had worked arsenic an creator passim his career. Even Torres’ dada thought it was a discarded of clip and that pack members would soon screen the murals again with graffiti. When Torres asked the radical who would beryllium consenting to connection their partition for a mural, nary 1 volunteered. But yet 1 antheral raised his hand, and a task was born. 

Torres grew up successful the barrio, and inactive lives there, on with his parents and respective siblings. He was drafting by the property of four. As an adult, helium taught simple schoolhouse for 2 years, but spent astir of his vocation moving arsenic a textbook illustrator. He developed mural acquisition erstwhile teachers would inquire him to overgarment murals connected their schoolroom walls. 

Not agelong aft Torres retired, COVID-19 hit. Painting murals successful the barrio allowed him to get retired of the house. In 9 months betwixt 2020 and 2021, moving astir days from 8:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Torres created murals connected 14 walls successful the neighborhood. 

“Submission eagle warrior, dancing woman” (Guillermo Torres)

“The Cuatro Vientos Project roseate from the request to amended the municipality situation and to usage creation arsenic a instrumentality to deter crime,” Torres told me. “It made the artwork accessible to radical from each societal backgrounds, allowing them to admit it and consciousness a consciousness of ownership and belonging.”

Partnering with the families to determine what to overgarment connected their walls, helium established 3 criteria: A mural either had to picture the sanction and past of an alley; exemplify important radical who had lived oregon presently unrecorded successful the neighborhood; oregon picture a movie that had been staged adjacent the barrio oregon successful the city. One of the murals, for example, shows wrestlers from the 1972 film, “The Mummies of Guanajuato.”  

In different vibrant mural, “Submission eagle warrior, dancing woman,” a young pistillate is dancing, portion a jaguar warrior bends submissively down her. Torres told maine that the families surviving successful this location had been dancers for much than a century.

A 3rd mural depicts a mule loaded with firewood, with 2 black-skinned children connected the crushed adjacent to it. Neighbors explained to Torres that respective families had historically sold firewood and charcoal brought down from the hills by donkeys and mules. The muleteers dropped the loads connected the crushed wherever the children played, causing the kids’ apparel and tegument to beryllium covered successful soot. 

Torres volunteered each his services, including his materials. Because helium didn’t privation to enactment fiscal unit connected his neighbors, helium ne'er enactment retired a donation basket, but contributions grew anyway, spot by bit. He spent astir 9,500 pesos connected the project, of which astir 7,000 pesos came backmost successful donations from locals and tourists. 

Since the mural task began, information has improved dramatically. The metropolis provides information patrols successful each 14 alleys, on with 24 information cameras. Neighbors study immoderate suspicious enactment done a WhatsApp group. Little graffiti tin beryllium seen connected the alley walls. 

Torres present offers occasional tours to funny visitors, continues to overgarment and teaches creation to seniors successful antithetic parts of the city.

He is grateful that the task not lone reduced transgression but helped his neighbors admit art. Even his dada changed his mind. “He’d locomotion astir and perceive neighbors’ affirmative comments,” Torres said, smiling. “And past he’d say, ‘My lad painted that!’”

Today, 5 years aft the task began, Pardo remains a exemplary of municipality renewal. 

Louisa Rogers and her hubby Barry Evans disagreement their lives betwixt Guanajuato and Eureka, connected California’s North Coast. Louisa writes articles and essays astir expat life, Mexico, travel, carnal and intelligence health, status and spirituality. Her caller articles are disposable connected her website, authory.com/LouisaRogers