MAT TOMEZSKO

During 2023 and 2024, Mural Arts Philadelphia participated in a cultural exchange with artists and social workers from Ukraine. Through two visits to Philadelphia, online co-learning sessions, and a collaborative painting engagement, an exciting conversation unfolded about the impact and importance of art and art-making to support spaces of storytelling, belonging, and healing.

In the Fall of 2023, a cohort of artists and administrators from Ukraine visited Philadelphia to learn from the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS) about the ways of supporting people in managing their mental health, especially those experiencing trauma. Porch Light, a partnership between Mural Arts and DBHIDS, was asked to participate in this work and Program Director Nadia Malik led a conversation about how Porch Light uses art-making as a vehicle to connect people across Philadelphia with opportunities to contribute to meaningful public art projects and how, through this work, there is healing and

transformation.

This phase of the project culminated in a mural tour from Jefferson Station to Suburban Station, and an informational engagement and painting activity with Mural Arts’ same-day work-and-pay program, Color Me Back (CMB). During this engagement, the cohort from Ukraine participated in the CMB program’s signature project, the Garden Wall series developed over three years of community engagement in Kensington by artist Mat Tomezsko, which prioritizes and encourages collaboration and individual expression using a format that also invites participants to be the designers. While the Ukrainian artists were working on their triangular compositions, they introduced the CMB staff to Petrykivka painting, a style of painting that is original to Ukraine. Together, they adapted the Garden Wall imagery to this style and a new composition was created.

In August 2024, the Mural Arts Institute (MAI) and the Porch Light Department teamed up to work with the Health Federation of Philadelphia and in collaboration with the USAID Public Health System Recovery and Resilience Activity (PHS R&R) led by Pact. Together, MAI and Nadia Malik, Emily Crane and Mat Tomezsko of Porch Light led four online sessions over the course of a month with a second cohort of artists and administrators in Ukraine. The team presented information about the Mural Arts and Color Me Back program’s approach to community engagement, practical, material, and logistical concerns, as well as specifics of working and building meaning within traumatized communities.

In September 2024, the second delegation of artists and social workers visited Philadelphia. Over three days, the group worked with the MAI and Porch Light teams to visit community hub spaces, explore artist studios, and continue to share in conversations on trauma-informed approaches to community art-making. The Porch Light staff hosted the artists at the Color Me Back studio for a collaborative painting activity that adopted the Petrykivka style from the designs produced during the previous online sessions. Artist Mat Tomezsko and the Color Me Back program created compositions that bring together the materials and original designs produced entirely by the Ukrainian artists throughout multiple sessions over the year. The two artworks are: Petrykivka Garden, a celebration of creativity and cultural exchange, and Cities of the War, a more somber piece with names of cities affected by the ongoing conflict handwritten by the visiting Ukrainians.

The visit for this second delegation concluded with a reflection session led by MAI. The goal was for the artists to reflect on their experiences throughout the visit and to envision what concepts they would take back to their communities in Ukraine. The conversation produced insightful responses about the power for art to inspire, to uplift community voices and to activate social change.