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Bridport Rights Respecting Mural

A rights respecting mural for Bridport’s young people

Street artist Marina Renee-Cemmick has led a group of young people in painting a large mural at one end of St Mary’s playing field, commissioned by The Lyric Theatre with Bridport Rights Respecting Town, and supported by the Town Council.

Concluding The Lyric’s recent project Right Up Your Street, at the end of August Marina collaborated with young people in our community to design and create a piece of street art representing elements of identity, with a particular focus on the Rights Respecting Town Charter principles of:

  1. Freedom of belief, thought and expression
  2. Democracy & access to public services
  3. Personal and community security
  4. Personal and community culture
  5. Environment

The young people identified specific Rights they felt are important to them – Right to be me, Right to education, Right to be safe, LGBTQIA+ Rights, Black Lives Matter – equality, environment and social justice are hugely important to them.

Bridport Rights Respecting Mural

The resulting mural is full of hope and positivity and gave a voice to the younger members of our community. All ages were involved in painting the mural alongside Marina, but mostly 15-17 year-olds with some younger people and children taking part too. 

Marina said,It was lovely to have so many young people and children involved with painting it, giving their ideas and thoughts towards the design and learning how to use spray paint – and so many passers by enjoying and commenting on it as it grew over the three days it took to paint. I wanted to give the young people that spend time in the park something to feel part of and proud of. Thank you to everyone involved.

Marina Renee-Cemmick was one of the six artists involved with Right Up Your Street, popping up in the Lyric van at locations around Bridport this summer, talking with members of the community about their experiences of lockdown and creating puppets based on people’s stories. Earlier this year Marina painted the Lyric’s front doors with a scene of two people kissing, which has attracted a lot of positive attention ever since. 

Marina hails from Bridport and is a hugely accomplished artist on a fantastic trajectory in her career, so it is a real coup for Bridport to have this special artwork in our town and for younger people to have learned from her while having important discussions around rights respecting. 

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