A 980km journey to honor the memory of Gabriel Cruz
Basque couple travel 16 hours in an old van to the site where eight-year-old Spanish boy was murdered
Graffiti artists Mikel Herrero and Olaia Chocarro, a couple from San Sebastián in northern Spain, got behind the wheel of their old van on March 18 and drove 983 kilometers down to Níjar, in the southern province of Almería, with the goal of doing something to honor the memory of Gabriel Cruz, the eight-year-old boy who was recently murdered there, allegedly by his father’s girlfriend.
The trip took them 16 hours, and a chance encounter with the boy’s father led to the idea of creating a mural on the wall of Gabriel’s grandmother’s house – the last place the child was seen alive. The project took three days to complete.
“It was a very heartfelt gesture. Gabriel deserves it,” says Herrero. “We are very happy, up on a cloud, over the impact our work has had on the family. That’s what we value the most.”
