Vancouver mural artist honours late 2SLGBTQ+ activist while fighting back against hate

As locals prepare for the upcoming Vancouver Mural Festival, one artist says he’s faced some pushback when it comes to his piece.

Matthew Hanns Schroeter’s mural at 958 Denman Street pays homage to ted northe, a 2SLGBTQ+ activist and drag queen who was involved in organizing Vancouver’s first Pride parade. The piece titled ‘I am a Human Being’ is set to be officially unveiled next week, after it’s completed on Aug. 4.

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“The mural festival usually puts out a call every time they’re going to be doing a festival, so I applied to that call and they got in touch with me saying they had a wall available and they really liked my style,” he explained.

“I tried to read a lot of articles about ted northe and I had known a little bit about him before doing this piece … through this process I tried to read up a little bit more on his history to make sure that I could do something that honoured his legacy and I wanted to do something that was positive, very colourful, very energetic — something that would liven up the neighbourhood, the streets, and the wall as well.”

However, throughout the process, Schroeter says he’s received some negative comments from people walking or driving by.

“A couple of the comments I just kind of had to take a break and start again as soon as I got over it,” he told CityNews, adding some of the comments toward him were homophobic, while others degraded the piece he was working on.

He admits that the public nature of his work means he has to prepare for these sorts of instances, though he notes they don’t happen too often.

“It’s a very public location — it’s on the main street. It hasn’t been too tough so far in that respect,” Schroeter said. “It could be worse.”

“I guess I haven’t been confronted physically or anything like that, so that’s been good. But yeah, when you’re doing something that public, I guess you kind of have to deal with this? I wish that weren’t the case … especially as the mural’s gotten closer to completion, or maybe folks see that it’s rainbow colours and things like that and maybe feel more likely to make a comment or something.”

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While he’s faced some negativity through his work, Schroeter says there’s also been overwhelming support.

“The reactions have been more positive than negative. People walking by, I get tons of ‘Thank you, I love seeing colour in the neighbourhood,’ kind of thing,” he explained. “Even just simple thank yous are really nice … that really helps keep me going too.”

The Vancouver Mural Festival is an event put on by an independent, non-profit organization that aims to connect the community through art.

Over 30 murals in eight neighborhoods are set to be unveiled during this year’s festival, which runs from Aug. 4 to 14. More than 300 murals have been created over the years as part of the festival.