Thread by @Nrg8000

The final state of Ukraine's support mural in @Reddit's 80-hour r/Place art mural experiment. It features Zelenskyy, a Bayraktar, the An-225, tractors dragging tanks, cathedrals, and several cross-over references I'll try to explain below.

@Reddit This experiment allowed every Reddit user to change one pixel on a massive canvas every 5 minutes. Creating murals like this required communities to come together under a common vision to stake out their territory on the canvas and maintain it in the face of other communities.

@Reddit Within 2-hours of the experiment starting, a large Ukraine-flag banner had been drawn across the whole canvas. This lasted for about 10-hours before being encroached by a mixture of generic pro-Ukraine symbols (plus "FUCK PUTIN") and random doodles/graffiti.

@Reddit This was quite a nice part of the original banner before it disintegrated into the mural.

@Reddit The art that endured throughout the mural are:
- the link to r/PlaceUkraine -the subreddit that lead the organisation of the mural;
- a link to comebackalive.in.ua - a crowdfunding website to support the Ukrainian military;
- a sprite of a Cossack warrior;

@Reddit - a Ukraine flag-coloured tractor towing an abandoned tank;
- a peace sign in the Ukrainian-yellow;
- a portrait of Zelenskyy in sunglasses;
- the Tryzub - the Ukrainian tridant/coat of arms;
- the symbol of Crimean Tatars above it;

@Reddit - Slava Ukraini! (Слава Україні!) - Glory to Ukraine;
- the An-225 Mriya cargo plane that was destroyed in Hostomel;
- Glory to Heros! (Героям слава!);
- more tractors dragging tanks amid a field of sunflowers (representing dead Russians);

@Reddit - Saint Michael's Monastery - a Ukrainian Orthodox monastery that was demolished during the Soviet occupation and later rebuilt;
- Saint Sophia Cathedral - Ukraine's first World Herritage site;
- a MiG-29 representing the Ghost of Kyiv legend;
- a Bayraktar armed drone.

@Reddit There are also several cross-references to other communities drawing on the canvas (remember this is peak online):
- The DOTA-2 logo and a character from the video game;
- Na'Vi logo - who is a popular Ukrainian video-game streamer;
- The Beatles' Yellow Submarine;

@Reddit - Flag-hearts of several other country communities on Reddit showing solidarity. Because there was limited space for hearts there was stiff competition between the flags displayed, and they often changed as some communities woke up and others slept;

@Reddit - the "Wings of Freedom" from the anime Attack on Titan coloured in Ukrainian colours;
- the Japanese word for "Freedom" (自由を) referencing these wings;

@Reddit - Nanachi - a girl/critter from the anime Abyss. Her sprite was originally drawn over to make the mural but was permitted to be redrawn in blue, in solidarity to Ukraine;
- a generic sprite from the Ukrainian video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R that is set in Chernobyl.

@Reddit Keep in mind that none of this was 'finished', no one knew when the canvas would be shut down and therefore this was an evolving artwork until the moment that it was finished.

@Reddit There are also several other pieces of 'protest art' on the canvas, showing support for protest movements against authoritarian states. I'll try my best to show them below, but I'm probably missing quite a few. Please let me know what I've missed.
cc @NiaoCollective

@Reddit @NiaoCollective Firstly there is the anti-CCP corner.
It shows:
- a mural in solidarity with trafficked women in China, referencing the Xuzhou chained woman incident
(徐州铁链女事件);
- a drawing of Tank Man standing in front of 3 tanks and the text "Fuck CCP!";

@Reddit @NiaoCollective - a portrait of Zhang Xianzhong (张献忠) a Ming-era leader of a peasant revolt. He represents the cycles of slavery and rebellion in China and currently is the mascot of the CLTV subreddit, a Chinese-language subreddit that critically discusses the CCP;

@Reddit @NiaoCollective - the LIKHG pig in a gas mask and yellow safety helmet, a protest symbol in Hong Kong - flipping off Xi Jinping morphed with Winnie the Pooh - a popular insult-caricature of Xi.

@Reddit @NiaoCollective There is also a map of the Baltics, with Belarus coloured in the red-and-white protest flag that has become popular with the democratic protests last year.

@Reddit @NiaoCollective There is also this extremely odd alliance between pro-ASEAN and pro-Democracy Philippines artwork and then some faction in a popular Grand Theft Auto online roleplaying server. The Tumindig character represents standing up to dictatorship in the Phillipines.

@Reddit @NiaoCollective This block was getting graffiti'd by a streamer for 5-hours trying to write "Freak Squad". Forcing the GTA and pro-Democracy ASEAN subreddits to team up and fend him off. Apparently, the graffiti ended when the streamer saw some GTA roleplayers had raised money for Ukraine.

@Reddit @NiaoCollective This 'alliance' was demonstrated by a drawing of a Tarsier representing r/Phillipines being drawn along with artwork of two dogs belonging to one of the GTA Roleplayers.

@Reddit @NiaoCollective There is also a Taiwan flag that has lasted on the canvas since the very beginning of the experiment, with a Formosan Black Bear and a Taiwan Blue-Magpie drawn on it. Elsewhere there is a Taiwanese independence flag (with a heart made up of the three adjacent community flags).

@Reddit @NiaoCollective There is also a large Black Bauhinia flag and a yellow umbrella both representing the pro-Democracy protest movement in Hong Kong from 2019. It is next to the Australian mural (with a shared solidarity heart) and a large Star Wars Mural that was built simultaneously.

@Reddit @NiaoCollective This led to another surprising alliance between the Star Wars subreddits and the pro-Hong Kong subreddits, with another Star Wars mural on the canvas being endowed with the Bauhinia symbol in solidarity.

@Reddit @NiaoCollective There was also an alliance between the Liverpool FC community and the Algerian community after the Algerian flag-banner and associated Berber flag were regularly defaced by Moroccan users.

Some other cute alliances that popped up:
- one between the Bangladeshi community and a gaming discord called HOMI (also with the Singapore and Malaysian communities);
- one between a Twitch music producer and Armenian communities.