Bryan Valenzuela

In collaboration with the UnchARTed program, the DreamSpeak 2021 project sought to engage the wider public's thoughts of the future on the tail end of an unprecedented year (2020). Artist Bryan Valenzuela asked viewer's to submit their hopes and dreams during the making of the mural and integrated those submissions into the main figure of the piece, carefully handwriting and transforming each of the participant's words into the form, light, and shadow of a woman who drifted off to sleep while reading a book. From a distance, the text blends into the whole like tiny woven threads in a larger fabric. Upon closer inspection, each of the aspirations, wishes, and desires of those who contributed come into full readable view; some veiled and shaded while moving into the shadows, some clear and bright in the light. Here the collective dreams of a community function as both a mark of the current time and a visual metaphor of movement forward toward the times to come.