Jaguar’s Quest

First opened in 2006, West Brooklyn Community High School is a transfer school that has enabled hundreds of students to graduate and developed lasting relationships with a once resistant neighborhood through its commitment to meaningful community-based connections. Jaguars Quest illustrates the transformative impact WBCHS makes on its students, empowering them with the inspiration and knowledge necessary to achieve success. The mural has four main concepts: power, inspiration, freedom, and knowledge. The mural uses the main character, represented by the jaguar, to build the narrative. Together, the team explored how this character is shaped by the challenges it faces. Moving left to right, the first stage of the mural is the jaguars constellation being born from a black hole and transforming into a medicine man that is the blessing and opening the path into awakening. Then appears a conglomerate of faces merging and facing in different directions. The creation of the collective thinking of these monuments takes the shape of a phoenix that the jaguar rides for combat. Finally, the character transforms into a sphinx who writes an Adinkra symbol that represents the importance of being constantly open to learning throughout life. Through this mural, WBCHS students told a very personal story of awakening and self-discovery through rich art historical references and symbolism from diverse cultural traditions, from Incan cosmogony to Ancestral Pueblo culture to Mexican Muralism.