Senbazru

Artist Louise Griffin developed a participatory mural project for two courtyards at the Augustus Hawkins Comprehensive Mental Health Center in South Los Angeles. The courtyards offer daily, outdoor exposure for youth and adult patients. The artwork transformed the spaces with a series of stylized mountains with cranes flying overhead, fostering an immersive, healing environment. Griffin met with recreation therapists at the center to determine the roles patients could play in creating the artwork. Taking into consideration that patients required different levels of supervision and accounting for the uneven surface of the spaces, the design is one-dimensional and graphically stylized.

Griffin also taught staff and patients how to fold origami paper cranes and about “Senbazru,” an ancient Japanese tradition of folding and assembling 1,000 cranes to help with the recovery of a loved one. The origami lesson familiarized patients with the paint scheme and provided an opportunity for patients to connect to ideas of individual and community wellness. The project was part of the Arts Commission’s NEA Our Town funded Project Willowbrook: Cultivating a Healthy Community through Arts and Culture.

Griffin's design for the interior courtyard at Augustus Hawkins Mental Health was awarded the Collaboration of Design + Art award for the healthcare catagory and was featured in the August 2013 issue of Interior Design Magazine.