The Museum was established in the year 2001 by the husband and wife tandem Joanne and the late Fouad Tawfilis. They used their life’s savings to jump-start this advocacy project and keep it going throughout the years. Their mission – to spread peace and environmental awareness through the art of mural paintings.

Joanne Tawfilis is a world-renowned artivist, utilizing the arts to make a difference in the world.

She is a retired United Nations Executive Director of Human Resource Management Services for the UN Environment Program, and Director, Management Services, International Atomic Energy Agency, and former Director of the Women of Srebrenica Project in the former Yugoslavia.

While her husband, Fouad Tawfilis, was an Egyptian businessman who owned three restaurants in Vienna, where they met. He went to Vienna during the Egyptian revolution to learn German and to get his Ph.D. in agronomy. Fouad paved his way through college working in restaurants. Afterward, he bought the restaurant to manage it rather than being just a mere worker.

When Joanne retired from the United Nations in 2000, Fouad joined her in running The Art Miles Mural Project and putting up the Muramid Museum.

Joanne says, “He was so supportive of my work in Bosnia when I started the first mural with 350 orphans. He got involved and retired from his business. We worked full time on this volunteer project using both of our retirement funds.”

The couple started The Art Miles Mural Project with the mural paintings in Egypt to create a pyramid of murals. So that was how Muramid Museum got its name.

Muramid Museum acts as a design studio for the murals that they have. It is the home base of the Art Miles Mural Project.

They put a lot of effort to get the Egyptian government to support their vision. Their intention was to build four pyramids made of murals. On a modular structure, they put the images of the murals in a pyramid shape and light it up. Already ten pyramids of murals like those has been around the world.

During the International Women’s Day in 2002, The Art Miles Mural Project tried to break the Guinness Book of Records of the longest painting, with 3.8 miles of mural paintings done in Abu Dhabi.

The US State Department appointed Joanne in 2012 as a Commissioner to the US National Commissioner for UNESCO. She diligently worked on World Heritage designation, education advocacy, refugee support, and healing arts.

Mural paintings she says help during time of tragedy. “By creating murals it help survivors who create them. Every time there is a human natural disaster, whether it’s shooting or tsunami, we let the people know we care about them by making a mural and sending it to them.”

“We did one for Puerto Rico last week, and we’ve done a beautiful one for Australia. Today we are going to start a mural of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, and we’re going to send it to his family.”

In the process of doing murals after the 9/11 incident, Art Miles collected 124 murals regarding the tragedy all over the United States. The murals mien of the different parts of the world, accumulated to 500ft-long in a matter of two years. Joanne plans to donate the murals to the 9/11 Museum.

To spread the advocacy of arts and peace, Muramid Museum works with orphanages and refugee centers. Joanne is hopeful that bringing together people of all ages, color, sizes, religion through mural painting helps create more movement towards cultural peace.

She also encourages everyone to be an activist and advocate of our planet. Make people aware of things like ocean pollution, global warming, and climate change.

Art Miles is in its 11^th year of doing murals about the sea. Volunteers painted about 50 murals every year. Now, Muramid Museum has 500 ocean mural collections.

All in all, Muramid has nearly 5,000 murals right now. Although it received a lot of donations of materials, the rest was still paid out of Joanne’s pocket.

To keep the museum and other projects going, Joanne and some volunteers asked for donations. Parents, schools, organization sponsors when they can. In two decades, they have raised $10,000 in a donation.

They got a small grant from California State University San Marco for the handicap people they support every Tuesday. Go Fund Me also gave them some money a couple of years ago.

Joanne shared, “The bottomline is if something that has meaning we need a lot of money to make it work.”

“Creating the mural is one financial part. We have to pay not just for the materials but also for logistics. And we don’t have enough money for promotional materials.”

“But we managed to do what we can. We keep going. That’s the most important. I’ve never lost sight.”

“I feel good for the support people give. Because I know that we have integrity. The community comes, and volunteers and painters and artists come. We even have deaf people helping out and senior citizens, college, and high school students.”

The tremendous struggle for Joanne came when Fouad passed away three years ago. He was her brainstorming partner and her computer geek. He used to hold down the fort while she traveled around.

There are plans to take Muramid Museum to the next level.  Joanne mentions that she is already 74 years old and might not be on this earth for so long. She wants to keep the meaning behind the museum and Art Miles project going, pointing out that it is more critical than the murals itself.

She plans to take photographs of the murals for product development so the museum can have a  sustainable income. Muramid Arts and Cultural Center will open soon, focusing on indigenous and environmental issues.

Joanne’s parting words: “In times of trouble or in times of joy, we can express ourselves through music, arts, poetry, performance, and dance. If you want to sing, say a prayer, write a poem, get it out of your system. Put it out of your heart so you won’t get bitter.”

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