Four hours. Fourteen boards. One community mural in full colour.
The Splash of Colour mural is a fast-paced, co-created community artowrk I led in Roehampton as part of a wider placemaking day. Commissioned by Richmond and Wandsworth Councils with Project Centre Ltd, the brief was simple but challenging: create a 14-metre mural with the community in just four hours.
Instead of arriving with a fixed design, we opened with a single question: “What makes Alton, Alton?” Residents of all ages painted, stencilled and layered shapes across fourteen boards using architectural motifs drawn from the Alton Estate’s modernist forms.
To keep cohesion without limiting creativity, I designed a curated visual toolkit — colour palettes, stencils and pre-painted shapes — that allowed people to work freely while building a unified outcome. The result is a bold public mural that reads as one artwork while holding hundreds of individual contributions.
The Story
The Alton Estate carries decades of memory, pride and change. This project set out to capture that living identity through immediate, joyful making — not consultation alone. Time was short and participation unpredictable, so the system needed to flex for both small groups and large crowds.
The open prompt invited personal histories, local landmarks and everyday stories. As people painted, the boards became a portrait of place created in real time — spontaneous, expressive and deeply connected to the estate.
Creative Process
I prepared a site-specific colour palette and a set of custom architectural stencils, along with pre-determined shapes to support rapid assembly. On the day, residents mixed, placed and layered elements freely. My team and I moved between facilitation and gentle curation — supporting makers, managing flow and keeping visual continuity across the boards.
In the final hour we brought the panels together, aligning motifs and rhythms so the mural read as one continuous piece while keeping the spontaneity of the day.
Mural Painting Day
The challenge was scale and time and and intentionally open theme. The mural was a part of the Splash of Colour day – which was a response to the requirements and development of the Alton Regeneration Plan.
I briefed the assisting artists, primed all boards in advance and created detailed checklists so nothing was missed. People arrived in bursts — families, teenagers, estate residents, dog-walkers — each adding their own shape, colour or story. The energy was high and infectious. Despite the pace, the boards came together with surprising harmony, held by the toolkit and the guiding question.
My Role
I led the concept of the mural making, designed the visual toolkit and managed the full delivery of the project. I coordinated with the councils and Project Centre, selected and briefed the assisting artists, and oversaw all preparation — from priming boards to organising materials and time-critical checklists.
On the day, I guided the co-creation process, supported the flow of participants and curated the final assembly. My role was to hold both structure and freedom, ensuring the mural reflected the estate while meeting the tight production window.
Community Impact
- High-energy participation across ages
- The prompt surfaced local stories and everyday observations.
- Contributors returned with friends and family.
- Demonstrated an inclusive, rapid model of co-created mural-making for estates and public events.
“
I picked up a paintbrush after 20 odd years’.
“
~ Contributor
Partners & Credits
- Project Vision: Conceived and led by Roopa Basu
- Artistic Direction & On-site Co-creation Lead: Roopa Basu
- Commissioning Bodies: Richmond and Wandsworth Council
- Delivery Partner: Project Centre Ltd
- Community Contributors: Residents of Roehampton’s Alton Estate and wider neighbourhood
- Event Support: Wandsworth Council High Streets Team, Project Centre Ltd, ThinkEvents Ltd