Painting Belonging: Community Murals as Tools for Social Cohesion in Kaunas

Abstract

This article explores the role of participatory mural art as a catalyst for community development, symbolic dialogue, and place-based identity formation in Kaunas, Lithuania. Drawing on community mural projects across distinct urban neighborhoods, the study employs a multimethod qualitative design that combines ethnographic fieldwork, semistructured interviews, participatory observation, and multimodal semiotic analysis. Using MAXQDA for thematic coding, the analysis reveals how co-created murals foster social capital, intergenerational exchange, and spatial transformation by enabling residents to inscribe their stories, memories, and values into the built environment. The findings show that murals serve as more than aesthetic interventions; they operate as sites of community empowerment and symbolic negotiation. Through acts of storytelling, shared labor, and creative dialogue, community members re-signify urban space and articulate belonging in ways that are emotionally resonant and locally grounded. Cases highlight how symbolic choices reflect both cohesion and contestation, while illustrating how visual representation of daily life can reinforce place attachment and visibility. The article contributes to the fields of community development and urban communication by proposing an integrated framework that synthesizes social capital theory, place attachment, participatory design, and multimodal semiotics. It argues for recognizing community-engaged mural art as a form of visual citizenship and participatory infrastructure with the power to reshape relationships, activate dialogue, and strengthen the social fabric of neighborhoods in transition.