STREET artist Sam Gaden hopes a new car park climate mural will become a “landmark for Taunton”.

A new mural has been unveiled above Taunton Library as part of a GoCreate Taunton and Rights Community Action project with Aerosol Art.

Sam Gaden is the artist and founder behind Aerosol Art, a business producing high-quality commercial and residential artwork.

The painting, which was completed over a two-week period, was designed and produced by Sam in collaboration with GoCreate and Rights Community Action to highlight climate change and the impact it has on Taunton.

Sam said he hoped this project might become a “landmark for Taunton.”

Rights Community Action is an initiative working to “inspire local creativity and action to show what communities want their future to look like” in the face of the climate emergency, according to their website.

The group is working with four of the communities at the greatest risk of the impact of climate change, Taunton being one of them.

Rights Community Action approached GoCreate Taunton with the invitation to work together to support and inspire the local communities.

Naomi Luhde-Thompson, director of Rights Community Action, said: “We wanted to help people in these places to understand the work and the emotional impact of it.

“With art and creativity, there is an emotional impact. And projects like this help people feel like they’re taking action.

“We need to do something quite radical here. But, also, if you’re changing things, it’s important that everyone feels connected.”

For the past two years, the two groups have worked with children in schools and painted benches across Taunton with community art to help raise awareness and support local people.

The #WeAreHere mural now situated above Taunton Library is the result of the partnership’s most recent project, commissioning Sam Gaden to produce the work.

GoCreate Taunton was founded in 2014 with the hope to make the arts more visible and accessible to all. Working with Rights Community Action they aimed to encourage growth and creativity among the residents of Taunton in line with the theme of climate change.

Liz Hitchin, co-director of GoCreate Taunton, said: “We developed workshops with children and painted benches around Taunton, but the mural was the thing we’ve been working towards.”

At arts events, GoCreate gathered design ideas from groups on what they’d like the mural to look like and fed them back to Sam.

Sam said: “It couldn’t be boring. It was something that had to be positive.

“It also needed to be inclusive. Art can divide communities and create argument, or it can unite people.

“For example, in the book imagery, the pages have been left blank. I want people to write their own story – take what you want from it.”

Mayor of Taunton, Cllr Vanessa Garside said: “This just shows what can happen when people in the community come together.”