During fall 2013, 5th grade students from PS 24 in Brooklyn came together with Groundswell to create 7 mini-murals that celebrate diversity within their community. Through critical thinking and class discussions the students were able to bring up new ways to draw meaning out of the theme of the mural: diversity and responsibility. Diversity to them did not just concern race, ethnicity, and culture, but also personalities, academic roles as well as roles at home, fashion, interests, and much more.
 
“Many Faces of Our Community” depicts various scenes of youth studying and working together.  In addition to this, the panels also point to themes of family, friendship, health, and cultural diversity which students worked together to create. Developing the mural enabled the students to think about their own lives and their connections to the community as well as providing a means for the children to exhibit responsibility like the scenes depicted in the murals.

Through a partnership with the New Rochelle Arts Council and New Rochelle School District, Groundswell facilitated the collaborative research, design, and creation of a public art piece in New Rochelle. The program engaged student participants in activities that generated ideas, images, and themes that built on the theme “My New Rochelle.” Groundswell artists led students through activities for developing the imagery including group brainstorming, creating collages, and free sketching. The team created a design based on New Rochelle High School’s emblem based on the fleur-de-lis. Hands extend outward as colorful shapes fly out of their grasp. In the shapes are youth engaging in art, community service, and sports. 

Groundswell worked with Youth For Real to create two murals for PS 33.
 
One team, made up of 3rd to 5th graders, focused their mural on community change, with a special focus on Black and Latino leaders from around the world. The philosopher Paulo Freire, Puerto Rican independence politician Pedro Albizu Campos, revolutionary Fred Hampton, and Pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey all make an appearance in the mural.  
 
Another team was comprised of 2nd graders who focused on career visions. The youth selected a series of characters that represented professions they wanted to have one day. The occupations include firefighter, chef, judge, and veterinarian. In the lower half, a child plays with a plane and smiles looking forward to the future.

In 2003, a team of Groundswell youth artists collaborated to create “Music Tamed the Beast” at Brooklyn High School for the Arts. The youth discussed their aspirations for their future careers. The mural’s theme represents the mission of Brooklyn High School for the Arts, which aims to “encourage and nurture youth to use their works and expressions, their rhythms and sounds, their impressions and designs, their movements and actions for fulfilling their potential, their dreams and aspirations.”
 
In the mural, a large yellow banner reads: “What do you want to do with your life? Music tamed the beast.” To the left, musicians play inspirational songs. To the right, a group of youth hold up carnival masks. On the masks is written different professions that the Groundswell artists aspire to have one day. The different aspects of the Brooklyn High School for the Arts curriculum is represented throughout the mural.

Over spring break, a group of high school sophomores in JPMorgan Chase’s program, The Fellowship Initiative (TFI), teamed up with four Groundswell artist to create a mural addressing the issue of young male achievement and advancement.
 
The team’s creative choices were inspired by a tour of the murals in the Pilsen neighborhood during the research stage of the process. The murals they saw illustrated local communities’ struggle to have indigenous traditions recognized and to have space created for them to expand on their culture. They also visited the National Museum of Mexican Art, where they studied works that strongly inspired the color choices of the final design. To create the design, the fellows were split into teams of four to visualize how they interpreted the colloquialism, “Making it.” The four lead artists—Ashton Agbomenou, Angel Garcia, Jose de Jesus Rodriguez, and DonChristian Jones—combined the fellows’ thoughtful sketches into one cohesive design.
 
The final mural includes a stream of water flowing through the pathway of success for the young scholars. To the left, thorns try to restrain the bound scholar as he reaches out for a diploma. The thorns symbolize the harsh conditions that young people can often find themselves in when trying to succeed in life. At the center of the mural, a man surrounded by gold can be interpreted as a sun god or the “Spirit of Success.” He pays homage to the burning urge to succeed that a lot of young adults have but for one reason or another cannot immediately attain. To end the mural, a hand, having finally achieved success, offers a mother figure a house.

“Born and Raised” was created as part of the Gowanus Public Art Series, an important component of the Bridging Gowanus initiative led by Council Member Brad Lander. This series will create new platforms for public art, and new opportunities for artists, while at the same time showcasing what makes Gowanus “Gowanus”: the history, the Canal, the culture of creativity and the diversity of the community.
 
During the design process, a team of young artists researched the history of the Gowanus Canal, from its previous setting as the marshlands of Gowanus Creek to its current state as a superfund site and its legacy of environmental problems. The central image in the mural is the Gowanus Canal. The Gowanus Canal has been designated a superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning it is a hyper polluted body of water. But due to local activism, there are massive cleaning efforts being implemented and planned for the canal. Despite the troubling issues surrounding the Gowanus Canal, many people have and continue to consider it home, and the canal has become an enigmatic symbol of the neighborhood.
 
The mural’s design centers on historically important locations around the Gowanus neighborhood. Included in the mural is the Gowanus Canal as well as the eight-story Kentile Floors sign, on one hand an iconic landmark and on the other a company which manufactured asbestos-containing products. This mural recognizes also the solidarity between the Gowanus Houses (red buildings on the left) and the Wyckoff Houses (beige buildings on the right). 
 
 
 
⇒ Download educational curriculum (pdf)

As part of the STARS Citywide Girls Initiative, an initiative funded through the New York City Council, a team of young women facilitated the research, design and creation of a mural to raise public awareness and encourage dialogue about gender-based violence. Their mural, “Gender Violence and the Culture that Perpetuates It,” uses art to express the importance of empowering women in order to stop violence.
 
The central figure is a woman depicted as an ancient statue carrying a pillar. On the top edge of the pillar is the outline of a New York skyline with arches stating: “woman, leader, mother, human, sister, partner.” The figure is portrayed as a strong powerful carrier, symbolizing the foundation for life and strength. To her left, a woman holds a flag high. The flag billows out into a ribbon that crosses the entire mural. The ribbon has the text “We are the root of life” on it. On the right side of the mural, a face in profile has colorful rays emerging from its mouth. In the rays the team wrote different examples of gender-based violence such as “Objectification,” “Stereotype,” and “Slut-Shamed.” Flowers and leaf designs are intertwined within the overall mural.
 
The team installed this mural on a basketball court as neighborhood residents were playing. The residents were inspired by the message of the mural: that all women are as “strong” and “powerful” as the statue in the mural.

“We Spark Change” expresses the values of Brooklyn Community Foundation by creating a mural inspired by the Foundation’s mission to pursue a fair and just Brooklyn, and to Spark Lasting Social Change with particular focus on activating and investing in Brooklyn’s youth. The team featured a lead artist and four talented Youth Artist Apprentices, who on previous Groundswell projects showed leadership, creativity, and dreams of a career in art. “We Spark Change” contains images of youth empowerment and community involvement such as siblings helping each other with homework, youth and senior citizens watering a garden, and a young artist painting a peer’s protest sign which reads “Fair & Just.” Several images of Brooklyn’s iconic architecture, such as brownstones and the Brooklyn Bridge, locate the mural in the borough.

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.
The Groundswell youth artists at MS 279 created a sign encouraging drivers to “Stop & Think Before You Go.” The sign depicts a car waiting at the crosswalk as three pedestrians cross the street.

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.
 
The Groundswell youth artists at IS 230 created a sign based on the game Scrabble. Letter tiles on the Scrabble board indicate words related to traffic safety. “Vision Zero” reads across the bottom, referencing the initiative to reduce traffic-related deaths to zero. Around the board, a child waits to cross the street.