The Nations of Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee,
2017

Completed mural for Nashville Walls Project Nashville, Tennessee. May 2017 Photograph: Brian Siskind — *Completed mural for Nashville Walls Project* Nashville, Tennessee. May 2017 **Photograph: Brian Siskind**
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Commissioned by the Nashville Walls Project and developer Southeast Venture, the artwork depicts representatives of a community undergoing rapid change in the area known as the Nations, in West Nashville, Tennessee.

Photographs by Guido van Helten & Brian Siskind

Project Details

Project

The Nations of Nashville

Location

Nashville, Tennessee

Commissioner

Nashville Walls Project, Southeast Venture LLC

Lee Estes stands outside his brick post war home. The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 Photograph: Guido van Helten — *Lee Estes stands outside his brick post war home.* The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 **Photograph: Guido van Helten**
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I don't want to be famous, I just want to be remembered.¹

The abandoned Gillette Grain Company silo is one of the lone architectural remnants in what was once Nashville’s industrial heartland. Standing at almost 200 feet (60 metres) tall, the concrete structure towers over the surrounding neighbourhood of the Nations – now better known for its boutique residences and cafes than its industrial past.

Completing the artwork over two weeks in May 2017, Guido van Helten chose the mural’s subjects for their symbolic roles as witnesses to the changing character of the Nations. On the structure’s east wall two children huddle, one stretching up his hand as though to reach the top of the silo tower. Beside them, on the tower itself, stands the colossal likeness of local resident Lee ‘LD’ Estes, who has lived and worked in the Nations area since the late 1920s and has observed a century’s worth of change.

To van Helten, Mr Estes embodies a generation of long-time locals who were born and raised in downtown Nashville and now find themselves stemming the tides of gentrification. “Very few of us are left,” Mr Estes told Nashville Public Radio:

All the older neighbourhood has pretty well gone… Hopefully I can live my lifetime where I am.²

New 'Tall Skinny' Houses, the result of subdivision and the neighbourhood's development. The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 Photograph: Guido van Helten — *New 'Tall Skinny' Houses, the result of subdivision and the neighbourhood's development.* The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 **Photograph: Guido van Helten**

As old Nashville makes way for the new, Mr Estes’ sky-high portrait is intended to commemorate the area’s working-class, industrial roots. Now an up-and-coming neighbourhood attracting young professional families, the rate of change in the Nations has led to concerns about diminishing housing affordability as developers move to capitalise on a real estate boom. The Nations silo will itself become the centrepiece for a 38-acre mixed-use development from Southwest Venture called Silo Bend.

Metro Councilwoman Mary Carolyn Roberts initiated the project alongside Nashville Wall Projects co-founder Brian Greif. Together they worked with Southeast Venture to include the large-scale artwork as part of the development. Ms. Roberts says the silo is a connector between older residents and newcomers to the Nations:

The old people recognize it as part of their heritage and the new people embrace it as part of their lineage.³

Redevelopment. The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 Photograph: Guido van Helten — *Redevelopment.* The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 **Photograph: Guido van Helten**

Urban redevelopment. The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 Photograph: Guido van Helten — *Urban redevelopment.* The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 **Photograph: Guido van Helten**

Van Helten designed the mural to acknowledge the tensions that arise within a community undergoing redevelopment:

I find the relationship between murals and gentrification conflicting, and in this work there is this conflicting yet harmonious composite of the two sides of social change. There is juxtaposition between a mural that discusses and commemorates the blue-collar demographic while at the same time being a powerful part of the change in the area.⁴

Work in progress. The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 Photograph: Brian Siskind — *Work in progress.* The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 **Photograph: Brian Siskind**
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Hoping for the mural to generate a dialogue around this tension within the community, Van Helten based the two children depicted in the silo mural on studies taken at nearby St Luke’s Community House – a pivotal place for Lee Estes, who played basketball and attended dances there as a young man and is now an active volunteer at the centre. The children in the mural look up to a previous generation symbolised by Mr Estes, but they are also active participants in the emerging character of the new Nashville.

Workshop at St Luke's neighbourhood community centre. The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 Photograph: Guido van Helten — *Workshop at St Luke's neighbourhood community centre.* The Nations, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. May 2017 **Photograph: Guido van Helten**

As Van Helten explains, the composition of the mural’s subjects is intended to commemorate not one single individual, but to represent the community as a whole – encompassing the Nations’ past, present, and future.