Mural tells the stories of Midland’s young people

If you wander down to Weeip Park at New Junction in Midland, you’ll find a bright and welcoming mural along the walls in the youth zone.

Take a closer look and you can find the stories of local young people woven through the design and a map of the Midland area.

The City of Swan engaged local Perth artist Haylee ‘Fieldey’ Fieldes to work with local young people on the project for New Junction’s major public open space. The mural was then painted over a series of community painting days in the January school holidays, where local

people were invited to help bring the design to life.

As the youth zone belongs to young people, Fieldey explains the consultation process for the design was important to understand what they wanted to see in the space.

Over a series of workshops, Fieldey and the City’s Youth Development team asked young people from all walks of life what they love about living in Midland, as well as gathering personal stories and memories about the area.

“It was important that we find out what they wanted on the wall so we could create a mural that would make them feel welcome in the space,” she said. A strong theme running through the replies was connection - both connection to Midland, but also to each other and their families. It also meant the literal sense of Midland’s physical location as a transport hub.

Another theme was memory of place - both one-off events and also repeated practices connected residents to place. For example: “Me and my brother always used to go to my grandad’s and help him make pasta sauce. He grows his own tomatoes.”

Once Fieldey had this brief from young people, she could design the mural using their ideas and memories. “The background of the mural is actually a very loose map of Midland from above and we’ve hidden a few of the young people’s favourite spots such as the Youth

Centre and Midland Gate in there,” she points out.

The right-hand side of the artwork is bigger and less detailed, representing how the busy Midland CBD and suburbs slowly calm and meld into a quieter landscape of bush and nature.

Fieldey highlights that the concept is designed to be, above all, fun and visually appealing. “Go check out the space and walk along the wall

and read the stories, and think about your own Midland stories.”

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