In the fall of 1999, IS 293 and college students from New York University came together in an educational exchange and collaborative mural project. The result was "Scene Through the Fence," a 16 foot high mural that stretches the full 125 feet of a formerly-graffitied schoolyard wall. The imagery integrates themes important to the youth: open mindedness, love and friendship. With this project, NYU made its first foray into introducing their art students to community service; Brooklyn youth had the opportunity to attend an NYU Public Art seminar; and NYU students began (and will continue) volunteering at IS 293's new Arts Academy.

Painted in a single room occupancy (SRO) hotel for people living with AIDS, this project was created by a group of HIV positive adults with histories of incarceration, drug use and prostitution. Participants generated symbols of stress and calm to illustrate the precarious situation of living with AIDS, on two adjacent walls. One wall depicts one of the participants as an “earthen angel” with butterfly wings. He is surrounded by palm trees and the sea. Like a nurse, he offers a tray of “healing” options, instead of medicines and pills, we see a young girl amidst flowers and butterflies. To the left, an anxious woman is holding a curtain on which are threatening mosquitoes and a large snake consuming a mouse. The mosquitoes represent “the plague” (AIDS) and the snake illustrates death and survival. Is the woman covering the “offer of calm” or revealing it with this “curtain of stress”?  One of the participants said, “I am leaving my own memorial here.”

In summer of 1998, in partnership with local faith-based community group, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, fifteen young people worked together to create a mural around the theme of spiritual leaders for peace and justice. The team represented young people, from all over New York City, of Muslim, Pentacostal, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American and Jewish faiths and ranged from 12 – 22 years in age. This diverse and unique group spent the summer visiting numerous places of worship and researching concepts of and leaders in peace and justice across their denominations. The group remarked on the many things that they learned: commonalities among religions and what leaders fought for; commonalities between each other; the challenges and rewards of working together, and understanding the social dimension to spiritual convictions. Perhaps the most critical messages are best expressed in the title of the work (which is a quotation from Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Naht Hahn) and the charge to action that “awakening” compels in us.

In 1994, at age 13, Nicholas Naquan Heyward, Jr was shot and killed while playing with some friends in his building in the Gowanus Houses in Boerum Hill Brooklyn. Police mistook his water gun for the real thing. Five years later, his parents, Nicholas Sr. and Angela and brother Quentin, connected with Groundswell as an opportunity to use their creativity to memorialize Nicholas. The mural’s design is based on collages, poetry, drawings and discussions generated in the brainstorming sessions with Nicholas’ family and friends. The youth and family raised and explored themes of memory and loss, vitality and afterlife, fear and acceptance. The central image of Nicholas in robes connotes both his junior high graduation and his induction into the world of angels. The vision of his afterlife is one surrounded by nature, with doves of peace providing his wings: a paradise resurrected. They created a new paradise as inspiration for the mural as well as in their individual “tireless efforts … to be co-workers with God.”

This mural was designed by young women living in the Red Hook East and West Public Housing Projects. It depicts their sources of strength including real images of friends, family, community teachers, clergy, and public leaders.  The figures are engaged in activities that the girls said give them strength, including spending time together, practicing for track, and enjoying music.  In the background, we see some of the participants holding banners and marching in support of one another.  The figures are shielded from the threatening elements (storms and cliffs) symbolized by the umbrellas of protection. After the design process was finished, the group decided to open the painting process up to both boys and girls in the neighborhood.   The mural’s written messages emphasize that the ultimate source of strength is one’s self: “Everyone Holds a World” and “Time in Life Doesn’t Stop Unless You Make it Stop.”

Groundswell’s first project organized Latino youth living in Williamsburg. Through numerous drawing sessions the group generated the mural's theme, ‘How Our People Left Everything Behind to Struggle to Build a Better Life Only to Find Ourselves Trapped and Isolated in the "Golden Birdcage"’, which deals with the complex sacrifices made by immigrant parents leaving their homeland to improve life for their children. The project made a significant impact in the community. Polish and Italian neighbors as well as local graffiti artists stopped to talk with the boys about their work. In addition, the youth interacted daily with the Hasidic owners and workers at the chocolate factory on which the mural was painted. These interactions grew into summer and weekend jobs for some of the youth.
 
 
 
 Note: this mural no longer exists at this location.

“Believe in East New York” was developed for a neglected but highly visible wall outside the Broadway Junction subway station in East New York to help revitalize the community through the creation of locally-inspired public artwork. Youth artists were recruited from throughout New York City, with a particular focus on engaging young people from the immediate neighborhood through our partnership with Aspirations Diploma Plus High School, a transfer high school which is located directly across the street from the project site. During their research, the young people investigated the history of the historic neighborhood. They also interviewed local residents to gather a series of oral histories outlining opportunities and concerns facing the community. The mural design balances vibrant historical imagery with illustrations of the young people’s aspirations and hopes for the future of their neighborhood. “We Believe In and Love East New York” is written across the expanse of the wall, with a film strip motif and a style inspired by influential East New York graffiti artist DONDI. The mural includes archival imagery uncovered by the youth muralists during the research stage and illustrates the history of transportation and recent revitalization efforts in the area.

In collaboration with artists Yana Dimitrova and Olivia Fu, 16 youth muralists created a new mural for the exterior of the High School for Arts and Business that speaks both to the importance of livable streets and the multiple roads leading to success for New York City youth. “Yield in the Name of Creativity” visually combines the idea of safe streets, especially around a public school, with an illustration of life’s many pathways to success. The design includes winding roads and an eye watching over the dangerous intersection where the mural is located. Also featured in the mural are two children who represent the dual business and arts focuses of the high school.

“We Live Here” was designed to promote liveable streets in New York City’s largest walk-to-work community. In partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation and environmental justice leader UPROSE, teen apprentice artists conducted studies on local traffic patterns and strategized ways to promote safety and respect amongst the many communities present in the neighborhood. Through this process, the youth artists created a new work of public art that explores how residents living, working, driving, and attending school along 4th Avenue in Sunset Park interact with the roads and with each other. Too often treated as a vehicle through-way for speeding drivers, 4th Avenue is also a thriving pedestrian destination, lined with schools, senior centers, churches, libraries, and retail venues. “We Live Here” is a collage of imagery inspired by the young people’s research and sketches, with many symbols present to encourage shared use of the streets. Unifying the message of the mural is the team’s intense focus on the human presence underlying traffic safety efforts.