Muralfarm.org search page
The search function returns a list of thumbnails and a map detailing murals’ locations.
The Muralfarm.org application is a comprehensive, publicly online database of Philadelphia’s collection of murals, enabling users to find information and view murals based on location, keyword, theme, time period or artist.
Client: The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
Challenge: Philadelphia is home to over 3,000 murals. The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program’s (MAP) is the nation’s largest mural program. It engages over 100 communities each year in the transformation of neighborhoods through the mural-making process, and their free art education programs annually serve youth throughout the city. MAP is responsible for managing the myriad of information about each of the murals and the communities they serve, and in doing so they needed to track information about a whole range of details, including artists, sponsors, affiliated organizations, start, completion and dedication dates, renovation and demolition details, and the location of each mural. MAP sought to create an easy way for Philadelphians or visitors to the city to find information about the murals as well as enable its staff to easily manage information pertaining to each mural.
Solution: Azavea developed Muralfarm.org using the Sajara® geographic digital asset management system. Muralfarm.org enables the public to search for murals by artist, theme, date, keywords, and by location and neighborhood. Visitors to Muralfarm.org can tag favorite murals, save searches, and enjoy special features like viewing the murals in Google Earth and Google Maps. At the same time, MAP staff can easily manage information pertaining to each mural through Sajara’s digital asset management tools.
Outcomes: Muralfarm.org enables MAP to share information on Philadelphia’s murals with a larger community than would otherwise be possible. “We are pleased to make our public art even more accessible to the world,” says MAP executive director Jane Golden. “We get constant requests from around the globe from municipalities ... and other arts organizations who are interested in our work.” And because the whole system is web-based, artists, neighborhood residents, community groups, and MAP staff members can leave comments and make corrections online, thereby improving the database over time. By pairing both public access search capabilities with collection management tools, MAP is able to use the Sajara platform to store critical information about its projects in a single place.
Press: Philadelphia Business Journal
Website: www.muralfarm.org