Students from West Brooklyn Community High School brought “Illumination” to their peers through a bright, meaningful mural installed in the school’s entrance and side staircase. For many of the youth artists in the program, WBCHS stands as a second chance at achieving success in their education. They wanted to create a mural that honored the individualism and inspiration needed to take ownership of one’s future in order to encourage themselves as well as future generations of WBCHS students and staff. Their discussions during their research phase led them to center their design on the theme that WBCHS students must always reach for "the light," symbolizing the future and their full potential.
 
Their final design includes nine scenes of growth, transformation, and illumination. At the entrance, students are greeted with Lady Liberty’s lamp of justice, a phoenix, and a figure that takes off its closed-off, darkened mask to unveil bright, colorful fireworks. Stripes of colors representing rays of light draw the eye up the staircase. In the staircase, a real window streams in natural light which is symbolically “filtered” through the artists’ depiction of a dreamcatcher. Down the stairs, hands reach for light fixtures. These light fixtures illuminate a crystal, creating a rainbow prism of hope, potential, and possibility.
 
Through their many representations of “Illumination,” the young artists reflected the hope instilled in them through their WBCHS and will inspire future students for years to come.