PHOTO | KENDALL WHITE

Makayla Binter leads an interactive mural program that started at Davidson College as a response to anti-Semitic tweets by  students in 2018. The mural morphed to support the Black Lives Matter movement with panels on the steps of the Levine Museum of the New South,

Makayla Binter created the Mural Panel Project as a way to address social inequality.

The interactive mural began on the Davidson College campus in response to anti-Semitic tweets by two Davidson students that supported the Ku Klux Klan in the fall of 2018. Binter turned to art as a means of encouraging conversation around topics impacting the Davidson community, such as racism, colorism, homophobia and classism. Two years later, she installed the same four stand-alone panels on the steps of the Levine Museum of the New South facing 7th Street, which will remain on view for several weeks.

“This iteration is in response to the Black Lives Matter movement as it has developed in the city of Charlotte,” Binter said.

Protests in response to the death of George Floyd began in Charlotte on May 29. The city commissioned a Black Lives Matter mural on South Tryon Street between 3rd and 4th streets on June 9. Brittany Moore wrote a letter to city council encouraging it recognize Juneteenth and celebrate the end of slavery in the confederate states when news of the Emancipation Proclamation’s signing reached Texas the same way it recognizes other holidays by lighting up the tallest buildings in the city. Various towers displayed the colors of the Pan-African flag—red, black and green—on June 19-20. On June 21, multiple people were injured and killed in a mass shooting at the 1800 block on Beatties Ford Road. The Mural Panel Project is a response to all of this.

“Along with the murders and deaths of people along Beatties Ford Road, plus the Black Lives Matter mural, plus how the arts can interact with our emotions and our reactions to things, I figured these panels could be turned into a response or a reactionary artistic throw of our emotions and what we are thinking of the process,” Binter said.

Binter collaborated with artists Matthew Clayburn, who painted the “a” in Matter on the Tryon Street mural, LordPhly of Raleigh and Adelle Patten, who helped Binter with the Davidson installation.

PHOTO | KENDALL

Makayla Binter at work on the interactive mural at Levine Museum of the New South.

“I’m here because I spread a message of self-awareness and positivity—that message being never apologize for being dope, dope being self, self being you,” LordPhly said.

Said Clayburn: “Pictures are worth a thousand words, and if I’m able to create images that push people to action, then that’s number one what I want to do.”

Binter also collaborated with Clayburn and LordPhly on a mural on Beatties Ford Road reading “West End” this week. Artists involved include:

W-Michael Grant @infamous_kiddo and Carla Aaron-Lopez @iamkingcarla
E-Binter @mkay_15 and Dammit Wesley @dammit_wesley
S-Clayburn @matthewclayburn and LordPhly @lordphly
T-@inigma__
E-Dyair @dyairart
N-Ricky Singh @mrrickysingh
D-DeNeer Davis @neerperfection

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