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 72 created a sign to stop drivers from double parking, which occurs frequently around the school. The sign depicts cars double parking on the street in front of the school. Two youth try to cross the street, but are confused as to how because of the cars in their way.

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 71 created a sign that illustrates ways to cross the street carefully. The scene depicted is set at a busy crosswalk. Characters are colored green for safe choices like wearing a helmet when on a bike. Characters in red participate in unsafe choices like paying more attention to music rather than the street.

Through a multi-project mural collaboration, Groundswell and EBCHS transformed the exterior of the school to mirror the positive transformations taking place within.
 
“The Key to Success,” the third in the series, utilizes many symbols to define both metaphorically and literally the “key” to success. To make success a literal aspiration, the mural is in the shape of a key. At the base there are two sides: one side features buildings and the other includes trees. A woman pulls a lever between gears on the side with buildings while a man waters the trees on the other side. The key rises into a clenched fist of power symbolizing strength and determination, adorned by wings and a banner which reads: “Happiness is the key to success, Success is the key to happiness.” The clenched fist holds the golden ring of the key. Inside the golden ring is a night sky full of celestial bodies. In the middle, a ladder leads up to an elevator/rocket ship that is rising above the ring into untapped potential.  

Through a partnership with SCO Family of Services and East New York Middle School for Excellence, Groundswell facilitated the research, design and creation of three murals created by youth. Each of the murals was created in three 16-session over the 2014-2015 school year as part of ENYMSE’s SCO afterschool programing. Each project focused on portraying history and impact of Africans, African Americans, and people of color from the Americas.
 
“When We Were Kings: A Royal Past” depicts the ancient heritage of people of color in America. The team chose to focus on the resilient peoples whose civilizations and contributions to the advancement of the human race stand the test of time to this day. They specifically chose to focus on the legacy of the warrior archetype. The center image is a symbolic sun surrounding an Olmec head. Bursting out but still within the sun (alluding to being the source of civilization in the Americas), are two portraits that reach out over the horizon to two prominent figures in the Black and African diaspora. One is an Egyptian Warrior Queen and the other an Australian Aboriginal Warrior. These two figures are flanked respectively by an Aztec Warrior in a Jaguar Skin, and an ancient African Sea faring boat that was recently replicated exactly and used to make the trip across the Atlantic in the same manner that ancient seafarers did centuries before Christopher Columbus. The two outer most figures are Moorish-inspired people overlooking the power of the civilizations of America.

Through a partnership with SCO Family of Services and East New York Middle School for Excellence, Groundswell facilitated the research, design and creation of three murals created by youth. Each of the murals was created in three 16-session over the 2014-2015 school year as part of ENYMSE’s SCO afterschool programing. Each project focused on portraying history and heritage of African Americans and people of color.
 
“For Freedom, For Glory” reflects across a pillar that divides the mural in two. The reflection brings together various important imagery of African and African American history. The goal of the mural was to illustrate the African experience in the West, African-American History, and more specifically black resistance to slavery.
 
The young female figure on the very left is inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s artwork titled, “No. 58, In the North the Negro had better educational facilities.” Showing a figure striving for higher education (in any form) felt appropriate for this mural’s school setting. Further inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s piece, the piece includes many historic Black men and women who, as activists, were a part of the Pan African movement. These historic figures include Paul Robeson, Amy Jacques Garvey, and Kwame Nkrumah.
 
To connect the mural to the three-part series, this mural focuses on Pan-African images and colors. To encourage the solidarity of Africans worldwide, the team included imagery inspired by African posters of protest against apartheid, specifically the women on the right section wearing handcuffs on her wrists. This figure symbolizes the emancipation that’s granted when will and determination are exercised.
 
To remember the history of the slave trade, the youth included sculptures from Senegal that would relate to the mural design. The figures are of a woman and a man staring into each other’s eyes which represent freedom by love, both platonic and romantic.

Through a partnership with SCO Family of Services and East New York Middle School for Excellence, Groundswell facilitated the research, design and creation of three murals created by youth. Each of the murals was created in three 16-session over the 2014-2015 school year as part of ENYMSE’s SCO afterschool programing. Each project focused on portraying the impact of Africans, African Americans, and people of color from the Americas on history.
 
For “Ancient Future,” the team discussed the tangential concepts that the youth felt related to the topic and the themes of creation, art, music and a culture and civilization richly sourced in Egypt emerged. Focusing in on some of the cultural parallels between Egypt and the Americas, artists learned about major landmarks in the cultural evolution of the black race from Ancient Africa and into Black America. Art from the Harlem Renaissance resonated closely with the students. They created masks to become familiar with the rich patterns of African and African American art found in textiles and graffiti. Many of these drawings were included the design.
 
Separated into four major sections, “Ancient Futures” acts as an homage to the glory of ancient civilizations that are often forgotten but which influence the world today. The center piece of the mirror is a mask seemingly glowing or floating above the water beneath a city skyline. The mask is flanked by futuristic cities with floating pyramids that taper into two types of pyramids. The left side refers to the traditional Egyptian Style pyramid. The right infers from the Central, South, and North American style step pyramid all monumental architectural achievements in the ongoing evolution of human civilization. On the opposite wall from the main section of the mural is a sun. The sun emanates from a figure with an afro, inspired by the power and resistance demonstrated during the fight for Civil Rights in America.

Groundswell partnered with SCO Family of Services and PS 41 to complete three murals for the school to generate one large project. Each section focused on either respect, responsibility, or reason. The keywords brought an overall focus to the initiative of how youth come together in harmony and community as respectful leaders in their community.
 
For the winter project, the youth focused on responsibility. During the research phase, they researched socially responsible artists such as Kara Walker, Diego Rivera, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. They also created several collages that told stories about their community, their school, and their definitions of responsibility. The final work includes an example of public activism, mentorship of youth, a student completing their homework, and people engaging in art. The mural includes an image of “Respect: Respect Yourself, Your Peers, Your Elders, The Spaces we share” in progress. As a background, the artists used African-based fabrics to add color and dimension to the work.

Groundswell partnered with SCO Family of Services and PS 41 to complete three murals for the school to generate one large project. Each section focused on either respect, responsibility, or reason. The keywords brought the overall focus to the initiative of how youth come together in harmony and community as respectful leaders in their community.
 
For the fall project, three wood panels illustrate three “acts of respect.”  The first panel shows two youth participants from the program cleaning up trash as an act of respect for their streets/ neighborhood. The second panel depicts two youth shaking hands as an act of respect towards one another. The final panel shows a youth giving up his seat for a pregnant woman.  All three scenes are surrounded by African fabric patterns that makes up the background.
 
During the process, the students were very mindful of the theme “respect” and tried hard to model respectful behavior. By being conscious of their actions toward the classroom space and their peers, the team saw a positive shift that occurred in their interactions each week.  

Groundswell partnered with SCO Family of Services and PS 41 to complete three murals for the school to generate one large project. Each section focused on either respect, responsibility, or reason. The keywords brought the overall focus to the initiative of how youth come together in harmony and community as respectful leaders in their community.
 
 In “Reason,” the final of the three projects, three panels display instances when students are making decisions. The word ‘reason’ was defined by the group as the ability to make wise, fair and just decisions. The first panel shows two youth participants from the program facing opposite directions emphasizing that each of us has a right to choose which path we walk in life. The second panel shows three youth, two in fighting stance, and one youth in the middle attempting to stop and resolve conflict. This image stems from the youth’s feelings on the importance of being a peacemaker.  African fabric was used as a background and surrounds all three scenes.

Through a partnership with District 79 schools, which support students who experienced a disruption in their schooling, Groundswell artists worked with Passages Belmont to create “Transformations.” Youth from non-secure placement at Belmont Academy joined the team as aspiring artists excited to participate in creating a mural for the Belmont cafeteria. Brainstorming on the theme of transformations, the team explored the role of mythical creatures who symbolize transformation, growth, and transcendence. The youth imagined some of their own avatars, including the cheetah, butterfly, and wolf howling at the moon. These associations of change, strength, and perseverance spiral from the mind of a hypothetical student wandering through scribbles in a notebook.