Roots and Wings
Participants
- Joshua Rene,
- Geoffrey Kixmiller,
- Jazmin Berry,
- Clarisa Burgos,
- Julia Burgos,
- Steven Cabrera,
- Sheryl Cheung,
- Nygel Cruise,
- Ade Gee,
- Natasha Gonzalez,
- Anna Gutman Ben Howart,
- David Li,
- Dante Pearson,
- Joyce Richardson,
- Oswaldo Rosa,
- Duane Smith,
- Julissa Soriano,
- Shayna Stevens,
- Michelle Straussberg,
- Sean Tanner,
- Jessica Tapia
Community Partners
Neighborhood
Location
280 Wyckoff Street Brooklyn, NY 11217
Funders
-
None
Wyckoff Gardens is a public housing development located in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn. As the Wyckoff Gardens Community Center looked for opportunities to support the community's revitalization efforts, the Center's Director contacted Groundswell to create a series of murals. Roots and Wings is the second mural in this series created by Groundswell's Teen Empowerment Mural Apprenticeship (TEMA) afterschool program. In envisioning the mural, the community spoke of four critical themes that they wanted the mural to address: Unity, Family, Employment, and Education. The TEMA team related these themes to Civil Rights journalist Hodding Carter, Jr.s famous adage, "There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings. Unity and family give us roots; employment and education give us wings. Inspired by this idea, the team created a lyrical mural which uses a large bird as its central image. The bird soars on leaf-like wings and is also rooted in the earth. The portraits included in the mural showcase residents of Wyckoff Gardens.
