• The brick wall outpours with living arteries, forging new paths and networks. The figures supported by this living infrastructure look out towards Bowery, imagining new points of connection and growth.
  • Youth artists made maps of a city's anatomy, considering the boundaries and connections between resources in a city ecosystem.
  • Visitors to New Museum's IDEAS CITY Street Festival were invited to participate in the painting as they .
  • Youth Artist Shalisia Johnson tells community partners, "This project means that the city is full of endless possibilities and you have to reach out and find them."
  • The artists embody the mural's themes of collaboration and interdependency by "holding up" their creation-- a heart-like globe of city grid.
  • The rigid wall peels away to reveal the living, growing fabric underneath.

Project Description

Students from New Museum’s Global Classroom Program (G:Class) created “The City as a Living Body” in contribution to IDEAS CITY, a biannual street festival and conference series which brings together arts, education, and community organizations to collaborate around innovation and community change. This year’s theme was Untapped Capital and focused on under-recognized and underutilized resources in our cities. The team developed ideas around this theme and fabricated their vision during the StreetFest, where they were able to engage the broader community through demonstrations and community painting workshops. The artists were interested in the similarities between a living organism and a metropolis and how different stakeholders in the urban macrocosm collaborate to share resources, grow, and thrive. The image captures the vibrant movement and textures of the neighborhood and shows the brick wall peeling away to reveal living veins branching out and connecting us all to the pumping heart of the city.

Project Description

During the summer of 2016, as part of Groundswell's Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) 2016, upwards of 140 teens are coming together citywide to create seven inspiring murals from July 5 to August 31. SLI is Groundswell's flagship summer jobs program that employs youth as apprentice artists to create beautiful large-scale works of public art throughout New York City. To document this process of community transformation, a team of 9 teens collaborated on "From the Ground Up" as part of our Youth Media Council (YMC) led by Lead Artist Jessica Angel.
 
YMC documented their peers who were mobilized by national conversations on public health and safety, youth leadership, and social inequities. Their passion for social justice led the youth artists into bringing key community issues to life through the mural-making process. This year, the youth will create murals in every borough to use art as a tool for social change citywide.

 
 
 
 
⇒ Watch the video on Youtube (video)

Project Description

The traffic safety banner residency program, sponsored by NYC DOT Safety Education in collaboration with the Groundswell Community Mural Project, engaged New York City 6th – 8th grade students in exploring the traffic safety environment in the area around their schools. Through discussion of traffic safety issues and neighborhood observation, students worked together to identify problems and provide solutions by creating unique banners that speak to local issues. The project was facilitated at each school by a DOT Safety Educator and a Groundswell teaching artist. The banners, designed collaboratively by students, were produced by the DOT Sign Shop and installed at locations in the local neighborhood after approval from the BID. Their banners were installed along streets near the schools by neighborhood Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and will raise traffic safety awareness and help prevent crashes and reduce injuries around their school community.

Project Description

The traffic safety banner residency program, sponsored by NYC DOT Safety Education in collaboration with the Groundswell Community Mural Project, engaged New York City 6th – 8th grade students in exploring the traffic safety environment in the area around their schools. Through discussion of traffic safety issues and neighborhood observation, students worked together to identify problems and provide solutions by creating unique banners that speak to local issues. The project was facilitated at each school by a DOT Safety Educator and a Groundswell teaching artist. The banners, designed collaboratively by students, were produced by the DOT Sign Shop and installed at locations in the local neighborhood after approval from the BID. Their banners were installed along streets near the schools by neighborhood Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and will raise traffic safety awareness and help prevent crashes and reduce injuries around their school community.
 
“Be Aware of What’s There” presents both potential drivers and residents neighborhood with a message that promotes driver awareness.

Project Description

The traffic safety banner residency program, sponsored by NYC DOT Safety Education in collaboration with the Groundswell Community Mural Project, engaged New York City 6th – 8th grade students in exploring the traffic safety environment in the area around their schools. Through discussion of traffic safety issues and neighborhood observation, students worked together to identify problems and provide solutions by creating unique banners that speak to local issues. The project was facilitated at each school by a DOT Safety Educator and a Groundswell teaching artist. The banners, designed collaboratively by students, were produced by the DOT Sign Shop and installed at locations in the local neighborhood after approval from the BID. Their banners were installed along streets near the schools by neighborhood Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and will raise traffic safety awareness and help prevent crashes and reduce injuries around their school community.
 
“Your Rush, You Crush; Don’t Break a Family” conveys the goals by communicating a strong, succinct message to drivers; that they should slow down or their driving decisions will have a human and economic price.

Project Description

The traffic safety banner residency program, sponsored by NYC DOT Safety Education in collaboration with the Groundswell Community Mural Project, engaged New York City 6th – 8th grade students in exploring the traffic safety environment in the area around their schools. Through discussion of traffic safety issues and neighborhood observation, students worked together to identify problems and provide solutions by creating unique banners that speak to local issues. The project was facilitated at each school by a DOT Safety Educator and a Groundswell teaching artist. The banners, designed collaboratively by students, were produced by the DOT Sign Shop and installed at locations in the local neighborhood after approval from the BID. Their banners were installed along streets near the schools by neighborhood Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and will raise traffic safety awareness and help prevent crashes and reduce injuries around their school community.

Project Description

The traffic safety banner residency program, sponsored by NYC DOT Safety Education in collaboration with the Groundswell Community Mural Project, engaged New York City 6th – 8th grade students in exploring the traffic safety environment in the area around their schools. Through discussion of traffic safety issues and neighborhood observation, students worked together to identify problems and provide solutions by creating unique banners that speak to local issues. The project was facilitated at each school by a DOT Safety Educator and a Groundswell teaching artist. The banners, designed collaboratively by students, were produced by the DOT Sign Shop and installed at locations in the local neighborhood after approval from the BID. Their banners were installed along streets near the schools by neighborhood Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and will raise traffic safety awareness and help prevent crashes and reduce injuries around their school community.
 
“Be Present” uses traditional mola describe to emphasize the importance of not texting while driving.

Project Description

Groundswell and the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) designed the Traffic Safety Sign Residency Program to engage public school students in exploring traffic safety information through the creation of original street signs. Signs designed collaboratively by students at each of our partner schools are digitally rendered by Groundswell artists, fabricated by NYC DOT’s Sign Shop, and temporarily installed in local locations students identify as in need of traffic signage. Through this program, students learn how signs and symbols can work to communicate ideas and explore visual art techniques to develop graphic images. These signs then help increase safety awareness and prevent accidents in locations around each school community.

Project Description

In 2006, Department of Youth and Community Development hosted 400 youth at its annual youth conference, and Groundswell youth artists were chosen to create artwork to celebrate the conference. The mural highlights DYCD’s vision to encourage young people to go out and be game changers in their communities by creating and implementing community service and service learning projects in the areas of the arts, civic engagement, sports, leadership, and youth councils. The mural’s theme showcases and celebrates the great work that youth are doing to positively impact their communities. The four panels of the mural addresses four themes: community, change agent, environmental justice, and the joys of activism through art.

Project Description

The goal of the project was to create two posters that were directed towards high school students with a message along the lines of sharing the road. The two posters are portrayed in a comic book style to capture the attention of a younger audience. Both posters draw attention to commonly ignored traffic safety rules that could help prevent traffic crashes. The posters take on the point of view of a pedestrian and driver, who share the story line.

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