Students pose in front of the Land Art Generator Solar Mural Installation on the JT Brackenridge Elementary School in San Antonio, TX
that features their class below an image of the class of 1906, showing the continuity of life in the neighborhood over more than a century.
Photo by Imgard Rop.
La Monarca visits the San Antonio Zoo!
This Land Art Generator Initiative Solar Mural project was a partnership with Mission Solar Energy, OCI Solar Power,
EPIcenter New Energy Innovation Center, Land Heritage Institute, Sun Action Trackers, LLC, and Local Initiatives Support Corporation
Photo by Penelope Boyer
The first Land Art Generator Solar Mural Artwork— La Monarca — at Luminaria.
November 10, 2017
The first Land Art Generator Solar Mural ® Artwork — La Monarca — being fabricated in partnership with Mission Solar Energy, OCI Solar Power,
EPIcenter New Energy Innovation Center, Land Heritage Institute, Sun Action Trackers, LLC, and Local Initiatives Support Corporation
Photo by OCI Solar Power, November 2017
A workshop with Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Mr. Vega’s 5th grade students at JT Brackenridge Elementary, the Land Art Generator,
and Penelope Boyer. Photo by Penelope Boyer.
A workshop with Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Community Members, the Land Art Generator, and Penelope Boyer.
Photo by Elizabeth Monoian.
The first Land Art Generator Solar Mural ® Artwork — La Monarca — being fabricated in partnership with Mission Solar Energy, OCI Solar Power,
EPIcenter New Energy Innovation Center, Land Heritage Institute, Sun Action Trackers, LLC, and Local Initiatives Support Corporation
Photo by OCI Solar Power, November 2020
The film is applied as a community project to the Solar Mural artwork, En Aquellos Tiempos Fotohistorias del Westside. Photo by Penelope Boyer.
Land Art Generator
Solar Mural® artwork program
— anything an artist can do in paint, they can now do in solar!
With the advent of solar panel customization, art in public space stands ready for a revolution. Solar Mural® artworks celebrate local culture, provide new opportunities for artists, and make communities more vibrant and livable, all while reducing the carbon footprint of our cities as part of the solution to climate change. In sustainable cities of the very near future, murals will be fabricated from photovoltaic panels as often as they are created with paints.
We work with communities and site owners and:
- Helps to identify local partners
- Facilitates call to local artists and muralists through RFP and RFQ process
- Helps with public outreach and educational program development
- Assists with budgeting
- Identifies ideal sites and mural orientation
- Identifies appropriate solar technology
- Facilitates the design process
- Provides detailed fabrication drawings
- Coordinates fabrication and installation
Please contact us to bring a Solar Mural® artwork to your community!
Email us at lagi@landartgenerator.org
La Monarca
a Solar Mural® artwork
La Monarca is the world’s first Solar Mural® installation!
The unveiling of the first Land Art Generator Solar Mural artwork took place on November 11th, 2017 at Luminaria: Contemporary Arts Festival in San Antonio.
The La Monarca image was designed by San Antonio artist Cruz Ortiz with creative direction by Penelope Boyer.
It’s been quite a journey to get to this point—from the day we conceived of the concept of Solar Mural® artworks as we gazed up at a blank south-facing wall in Las Vegas several years ago. We are so thankful that Penelope Boyer latched on to the Land Art Generator idea as a mechanism for spreading public awareness about the plight of the Monarch Butterfly, and helped to put together the incredible team.
La Monarca has been a collaboration between Land Heritage Institute (LHI)’s LHI Art-Sci Projects, EPIcenter, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and the Land Art Generator. Fabrication and technical support has been provided by OCI Solar Power, Mission Solar Energy, and Sun Action Trackers. The project has been made possible through support from the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
La Monarca is a giant lotería card celebrating San Antonio’s status as the National Wildlife Federation’s first Monarch Butterfly Champion City.
Following the close of Luminaria, La Monarca will find a permanent home inside a pollinator garden on the EPIcenter campus along the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River where it will generate solar energy that will feed directly into the building and the city power grid.
In the near future, Las Monarcas will be a swarm of Monarch Butterfly-inspired Land Art Generator artworks to be designed for placement at and to provide power to social service centers, municipal buildings or eco-cultural tourism destinations in the City of San Antonio, or other stops along Monarch Butterfly migration routes. The expanded installation will be emblematic of the full range of issues the Monarch Butterfly has come to represent: species extinction due to global warming and climate change; immigrant, exile, and refugee rights; and now, renewable energy and regenerative design.
En Aquellos Tiempos Fotohistorias del Westside
a Solar Mural® artwork
The visionary commitment by Esperanza Peace and Justice Center to illuminate the En Aquellos Tiempos Fotohistorias del Westside project for nighttime viewing in the most beautiful and environmentally sustainable way is a reminder to all of us that every solution to the climate crisis is also an opportunity to lift up our communities and to beautify our neighborhoods. With this artwork you are telling the story to future generations about this time in our story when we did everything we could do to meet the challenge of creating an equitable human civilization that is in harmony with nature.
This artwork is not only something to take pride in as a local community; it is also a landmark to the transition we are undertaking as a global community from a system of consumption and exploitation of nature to a system of stewardship of nature and empathy for our fellow humans. The only viable transition is a just transition.
Read more here.
Artwork by Adriana Garcia
Art Direction by Penelope Boyer
Poetry by Carmen Tafolla
Photography on artwork by Antonia Padilla
Project partners include: Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, Land Art Generator, Mr. Vega’s 5th grade class at JT Brackenridge, Community elders from the Westside, South Texas Solar Systems, Mission Solar Energy, Outback Power, Sistine Solar, and Unirac.
Made possible through funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts, Awesome San Antonio, and the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation.
