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See you at the crossroads
Crosswinds at a crossroads, plus The Lost Boys of Sudan at the MFA

Crossroads for Crosswinds

The vivid mural on the Brookline Street side of the Middle East Restaurant and Nightclub is a familiar landmark that inspires affection in locals and tourists alike. It captures Central Square’s many characters, from a musician playing his drums and a punk-rocker sporting a spiky mohawk to a father holding his daughter, plus the Sater family, who have owned the club and held down the corner for three decades. The gathering of ethnicities and cultures is as rich as the neighborhood itself. But as the artwork suffers the effects of old age, it’s in danger of being lost forever.

Christened Crosswinds when it was painted by Oakland-based artist Daniel Galvez in 1992 thanks to a $16,000 Cambridge Arts Council commission, the enamel-on-masonite mural has actually held up well. It still looks fresh and brightly hued, and it’s outlasted the average outdoor mural, whose lifespan is about seven years. But its protective coating is failing, it’s become vulnerable to graffiti, and patches of paint have begun to peel. And though the Cambridge Arts Council, the Saters, and the artist himself would all like to see the mural preserved, no one is sure where the money will come from, or whether it can be raised in time.

The project began as a group effort, with the council allocating the funds and the Saters providing Galvez with food, drink, and lodging during the three months it took him to execute the mural. But since the funds came from the council, the piece’s restoration is the council’s responsibility, and its 2004 restoration budget has already been allocated to repair several local sculptures, according to Hafthor Yngvason, the city’s director of public art. Although Yngvason sees the mural as a public-art success and hopes it can be saved, he says that such funding decisions are made according to priority of repairs, and that neither money nor time is available for this project right now. "A decision needs to be made here: what is the cost and how does the funding develop? I’m really hoping that there is enough interest from the property owner and the business there that there can be a private/public partnership."

The Saters have talked of organizing a group effort that calls for contributions from the building’s owner (William DuPont, owner of several properties in Central Square and Harvard Square, mostly residential), the nightclub, and the city and perhaps a discounted restoration fee from the artist. Although the Middle East hasn’t figured out how much it could spend on the project, Nabil Sater has raised the possibility of holding a benefit concert.

And just how much money are we talking about? A few years back, Galvez restored Crosswinds’ companion piece, the 1986 Crossroads (it’s in the nearby Pearl Street Parking Garage), at a cost of $8500; Cambridge paid for that, since the garage is city property. Crosswinds is smaller, and Galvez, speaking over the phone, estimates that it could be restored for between $4000 and $6000, though of course it’s difficult for him to say without seeing it up close. He will do just that in early June, when he’ll be in Pittsfield to supervise installation of another mural. But though he’s expressed interest in restoring his artwork if the funding materializes, his time is in demand, and it can take a year to prepare properly for a mural’s restoration. The idea of bringing in a new artist is not popular with any of the parties, since they’re aware that would compromise the original’s integrity, though Yngvason has suggested that since the worst flaking and deterioration is in non-crucial areas (i.e., not faces), other artists might be able to do touch-ups as a kind of stop-gap.

And despite Yngvason’s belief that the mural can survive next winter, there are concerns that another year of harsh weather will see further deterioration in the paint and the wood that supports the piece. Because outdoor public murals are at the mercy of the weather and urban planning, they do sometimes become irreparably damaged. "Some murals, there really are no funds available to do restoration," says Galvez. "And so they just kind of gradually fade away and then eventually get painted over, which I understand completely. I’m not the kind of a muralist who says that my mural has to stay up there forever."

But it’s clear that the loss of Crosswinds would mean more than just the disappearance of a piece of art. "It’s a community mural," says Nabil Sater. "We have a lot of feeling for it."

— Sarah Tomlinson

Lost and found

Believe it or not, the world’s ongoing litany of terror, pain, rage, violence, disaster, and injustice does sometimes have a happy ending, of sorts. Those numbed by the continuing travails in Iraq and unable to find escape in blockbusters like The Day After Tomorrow might find some consolation and cause for optimism in Megan Mylan & Jon Shenk’s new documentary Lost Boys of Sudan, which is getting a month of screenings (June 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 17, 19, 20, 24, 26, and 27 and July 2 and 3) at the Museum of Fine Arts, with panel discussions to follow the 6 p.m. showing tonight (June 3) and the 11 a.m. matinee this Saturday, June 5.

The boys’ story is not all rosy. In 1983, a civil war between Sudan’s Islamic government and Christian and Animist rebels broke out in the impoverished African nation. It rages still and so far has led to the death of two million people. Among those suffering the most have been the Christian Dinka people: Islamic extremist militias have wiped out their villages, slaughtering the adults and kidnapping the children.

But thousands of those children escaped, fleeing to refugee camps. The International Rescue Committee and similar programs have since helped to resettle some 7000 of these orphans across the United States. Mylan and Shenk focuses on two such refugees, and though the boys’ experience in America is hard and even disillusioning, they find the resources to persevere and prevail.

Such has been the experience also of the 150 or so lost boys, and girls, who have resettled in Boston. Two of them, David Gai and Gabriel Marial Majok, will participate in tonight’s panel discussion along with International Rescue Committee regional director Rita Kantarowski and Majok’s mentor, Shannon Shaper. As for the lost girls, they are the focus of a short documentary by local filmmakers Ashley Umbro, Krystan Daley, Colleen McKay, and Laura Sinatra called "Finding the Lost Girls of Sudan" that will screen after Lost Boys on Saturday and will be followed by a panel discussion including former lost girl and now Brandeis University student Aduei Riak.

These children did not find America the "heaven on earth" they expected. "Like many refugees, they were excited at the opportunity and freedom to build a better life," says International Rescue Committee resource developer Melissa Hale. "They had a mixed reaction when they found the reality different from their expectations."

"They may have been inadequately prepared, or maybe they listened selectively," says Lost Boys filmmaker Megan Mylan. "They thought the first priority of our government was to get an education. They didn’t expect they would be spending all their time at first working at Wal-Marts."

Yet the strength and resilience that got these children through massacres and captivity helped get them through their period of economic and cultural adjustment, and many of them are pursuing their American dream of educating themselves. And given the possibility of a negotiated peace between the warring sides in their homeland, they may someday fulfill their Sudanese dream of returning to their country. "They want to have a hand in rebuilding a region that’s been devastated by the deadliest war in African history," says Mylan. "They are the future of their country, and of ours."

— Peter Keough


Issue Date: June 4 - 10, 2004
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