Leading@Google: Mona Caron on Harnessing the Creative Power of Art to Build Social Networks May 1, 2011

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Leading@Google presents Mona Caron, April 22, 2011

Mona Caron has a well established career as an accomplished artist and illustrator. In 1998 the creation of her first public artwork, the the 6000 square-foot Duboce Bikeway mural, marked the unexpected beginning of a now decade-long adventure in public mural-making.

Much of Mona's public art deals with social history and utopian possibility while also chronicling the life of its surroundings. Her mural's storytelling details emerge not only through research, but through her direct, ongoing contact with the artwork's hosting communities. In the process of creating public art spaces that are community-centered, Mona has developed unique insights into the power of art to bring people together, to create a vibrant social network within a community, and to build powerfully positive bridges between all those involved.

In addition, equally fascinating is Mona's own personal journey in developing not only her creative and artistic skills, but also her leadership in helping communities nurture and establish a collaborative, shared vision for their future. Join us as she introduces us to the dynamics of how public art has become a powerful, uplifting approach to building a sustaining social network where none existed before.

Bio: Born in a mountainous region called Centovalli ("one hundred valleys") in Switzerland's Italian-speaking canton Ticino, Mona owes her passion for botany and the natural form to her childhood's natural surroundings. Daughter of Swiss theater and opera set designer Peter Bissegger, and granddaughter of an artist of uncannily similar draftsmanship as herself, Mona briefly studied literature at the University of Zurich before relocating to San Francisco in 1992, where she attended the Academy of Art, graduating with honors in 1996, BFA in illustration.

Upon graduation, she started freelancing in illustration, enjoying book and poster illustration in particular. With her first public artwork commission in 1998, her career has taken a dramatically powerful turn, enabling her to work with communities around the globe with her inspiring approach to creating public art that ennobles and honors the past while enabling communities to envision their possible futures.