Along with the social artist Johannes Matthiessen, our guest teacher from Germany, the Detroit Community Highschool students have created these masterful wall paintings, murals, for the interior “village classroom space”.

Designed after the traditional house paintings  of the West African culture, these beautifully decorated walls with theire deep, rich colors are an expression of the artistic bridge between the Creator Spirit and everyday village life. In the Ghanaian village, where Johannes has worked in February 2007, the village King, Nana Kwahin, gave his voice to the world view of his culture when he said: “The greatest living artist is the Creator God who created the first wholistic sculpture, all living beings on this earth and in the heavens. We, too, are creators as his children who are here to continue his work and transform it into a future piece of art. But we are not here to destroi this magnificant first sculpture, no, we are here to continue his, our Creators art, into the future. This is our task.”

Here at the Detoit Community Highschool, our students have been building the cultural bridge through artwork. What has begun to emerge is a sense for Global Community whereby the interior classroom walls reflect the village and the Ancestors, while the exterior classrooms on the perimeter, with their “street lights”, depict the western city.

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