MAKING FORGOTTEN STORIES VISIBLE
A COMMUNITY MURAL PROJECT IN WIL, SWITZERLAND 2025
Seven men, seven artists, seven life stories, seven walls.
Together with residents from Haus Otmar (a men’s shelter home) we painted a long mural.
“This is the most beautiful thing I have seen in Wil in the last 40 years!”
“Thank you for being here. I’m so grateful I participated. I never thought it would do me so much good. The picture shows my best friend and me, who died last year. There’s no grave I can go to visit him. Now I can come to this wall.”
“This picture shows me with my friends. It was so much fun because I could participate and be there the whole week. I was so excited and happy that I often couldn’t sleep.”
“I AM SO IMPRESSED BY HOW YOU CAN TOUCH PEOPLE. THROUGH YOUR GENUINE, INTERESTED, OPEN, AND LOVING NATURE, YOU CAN REACH EVEN THE MOST CLOSED-OFF HEART; THIS IS A WONDERFUL GIFT FROM GOD. THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS GIFT INTO THE LIFE OF OTMAR HOUSE.”
Niki was caught spray painting as a teenager and hasn‘t painted graffiti since. That made him all the more excited to be allowed to spray paint graffiti with Nahuel.
While painting, Dominik kept coming by and could hardly believe his luck. Wow! Like a little boy, he rode his scooter past the wall several times a day, beaming from ear to ear. He had completely forgotten he never really wanted to be there in the first place. And suddenly he let himself be photographed, wanted to be named in the newspaper, and had no longer any reason to hide!
Marco wanted a picture showing him on the forklift with all his friends. All week long, he stayed by Stefan’s side and actively helped wherever it was needed. One evening, one of the men said to Marco, “I’ve known you for two years now and
have never seen you work, but since the beginning of this week, you’ve been at the wall every day helping out!”
