Laughing my ass off at this comment because I found the source and literally
Tan says, “Hundreds of flowers were painted by the students pressing their hand prints to the wall during a chilly January. Wall, hand, flower, wall, hand, flower… It was [a] heartfelt expression of gratitude for the school where they spent their high school lives. Layer upon layer of flower petals created a row of cherry trees in full bloom, through which I could feel the warmth of spring despite the cold cracks on the wall of [the] school building. It was as if the now-disused building reflected the warmth of the people who were once there.”
Color theory in a children’s institution strikes again!
for the record, this is what it looks like from the outside:
this was a part of okurie, a project started after the great eastern japan earthquake in 2013 as a way for local communities to remember and pay homage to damaged buildings set for destruction. people would paint murals onto walls as a way to mourn and remember the buildings they once used, loved, visited and lived in. this particular mural was made by students giving a goodbye to their school that was set to be demolished due to structural damage. the longer article (in japanese, but easily google-translatable if you go in paragraphs) clearly showed this to be a project of communal joy, remembrance, acceptance, healing, and grief. it was an idea started by art students, but became a community project that took over one week– students were doing this in the dead of winter, and one girl would complain of her hands freezing. and soon, alumni and teachers would be sharing it on twitter as a means of saying goodbye.
there isn’t anything on this in english aside from the mymodernmet article, probably because this was never supposed to go viral outside of japan - but this was an art project started by local communities after horrific natural disaster, so of course some redditbro decided to take this out of context, and of course this would be reduced to dumbass jokes
Well I’m here both for the heartwarming wholesome art project and the dumbass joke. Thank you for adding that context! It’s lovely. What a beautiful way to say goodbye to the building.
