ABOUT 'DO BETTER'
Part of the BLM Mural Trail
Each piece on the BLM Mural Trail is its own moving cog within the wider movement. My piece is about focusing on black men and women who have been overlooked and forgotten. I know others are focusing on the rarely perceived racism in day to day interactions. These issues are both just as real as the other and while separate, both feed into the widespread problems we are all working on to combat. ​
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The hope is that people will see a work of art on the BLM Mural Trail that inspires thought and understanding and furthermore inspires them to seek out other pieces on the BLM Mural Trail.
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To me, the BLM Mural Trail is about separately changing the world together.
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While the first names on the piece and all those that are added in the future are hugely important to the statement I am making, the point of the 'Do Better' piece is to highlight the lack of recognition afforded to their names. Black people in this country know what life is like and the difficulties they can face daily, so the focus of 'Do Better' and others on the BLM Mural Trail has to be pointed towards getting the attention of those who are lucky enough to not have these problems.
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For instance, John Edmonstone, a teacher at Edinburgh University, whose work greatly helped Charles Darwin fully formulate his theory on evolution. That's huge and very few people will know his name or that of Ignatius Sancho, the first black man to vote in Britain. So the names are of course vital but I want people to see the list of historically important black people, realise they've never heard of them, see the list continue to grow and gain an understanding of the scope of the issue and to understand the message of 'Do Better'.
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Revolutions are made up of people; their experiences, their passion and their pain. Every piece on the BLM Mural Trail is a little piece of a much larger revolution. That is how change happens. When enough people are united to fix what is truly broken. I think it is clear from everything going on in the world that change is long overdue.
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As soon as the idea of being part of a larger collaborative effort to speak to the racial injustices of the world, in her mind, Suzanne saw a line of people, different sizes, different colours and different issues. She knew her piece would need to not focus on BAME people themselves individually but rather the society in which they live and have continuously been let down in.
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This stop on the BLM Mural Trail is simply entitled ‘Do Better’ and it truly speaks to the entire message behind it. The words ‘Do Better’ remain unclear until looked at from a different angle. A practice that we need to implement into society. We don’t always know we’re in the wrong but if we adjust how we think about things and approach them, we grow and change. It’s not about blame rather going forward together, doing better.
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