Design workshop:

The case of creating a stencil mural

Abstract

Street art, as a global art movement, affects the daily lives of people in towns and cities of our world. Taking that into consideration, this paper reports on the concept of creating a stencil workshop with the goal of painting a stencil - mural (large scale artwork on a vertical surface). This co-design workshop includes some type of Maker technology approached through experiential learning and educational methodologies similar to those used in Design courses, as the ones taught at the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering of the University of the Aegean. The multidimensional character of street artists is presented in this paper’s introduction and their role as creators is examined under the light of design. The techniques and methods they use can be analyzed as design processes, one of which is the creation of stencils. Specific reference is made to the history of this artistic medium, alongside other ways of transferring a draft from paper or the screen on to the wall. The stencil-mural workshop took place in the city of Hermoupolis, Syros, Greece and was attended by 24 participants, young design students from different semesters, who worked individually or in groups for three days. The final artwork and the individual steps of its production are presented, and the paper concludes with all the results and insights provided by the study of the process and the feedback received from the workshop participants.