10/03/2024
The Department of Public Works, Creative Economy Initiative, and Clapp Memorial Library are collaborating to brighten your Belchertown Transfer Station & Recycling Center experience with murals focused on the theme of reduce, recycle, reuse, and regenerate.
The Town of Belchertown is currently seeking applications from artists interested in painting a design on one of three recycling and waste collection containers located at the Town’s Transfer Station & Recycling Center. The goal is to create a more cheerful, pleasant atmosphere by making the containers more visually appealing. We also want the murals to engage residents with the idea that they are part of something bigger and, collectively with their neighbors, their contributions are part of a beginning process, not an end.
The Belchertown Transfer Station & Recycling Center serves as a collection point for trash and recyclable items for authorized residents of Belchertown. All items accumulated at the Transfer Station are moved to other locations. Beyond the practical role as a hub for materials cycling through the community, the Transfer Station is, and has a long history, as a social hub for community members to meet their neighbors, jaw away the morning, and even campaign for office. In honor of this role as a social hub in Belchertown, community members have been invited into the mural process.
In preparation for the release of this call for art, project stakeholders engaged Belchertown residents through a survey to better understand their current experiences at the hub, what aspects of the theme most resonate with them, and what local values are a priority to share through this work as the containers travel. Through an online and in-person survey process, we received 99 responses from community members—the majority from folks in-person at the Transfer Station—about their experiences of the Transfer Station, imagery ideas around sustainability specific to Belchertown, and thoughts on our core identity to share with other communities as the containers travel between Belchertown and its next stop in the trash and recycling process. Overwhelmingly, residents value the Station for its convenience, friendliness, organizational efficiency, and as a community gathering space. We can’t wait to animate these community-sourced ideas in partnership with selected muralists, who will create designs in response to this feedback and developed in collaboration with project partners and the Belchertown Creative Economy Committee, a municipal body representing many local placemaking, cultural, and marketing groups for the town.
Linda LeDuc, Belchertown Department of Public Works Director, shared how happy she was by the amount of participation from community members. She continued, “it really shows just how invested Belchertown residents are, both in the Transfer Station as a community hub, and in the effort towards sustainability. Together, we are taking action to reduce, reuse, recycle, and regenerate, and we’ll continue to work towards sustainability in partnership with users.”
Applications for muralist concepts are open through Oct 11, 2024, and can be submitted online. Interested artists are encouraged to review the full project description, timeline, process, community feedback, and evaluation criteria found on the Belchertown Creative Economy page: https://www.belchertown.org/513/Municipal-Arts-Program
The murals are expected to be painted in Spring 2025, followed by a community celebration of the new murals, a Trash Gala, that continues to engage residents in sustainability ideas and practices through fun activities.
