Social Traps

Social Traps was created in partnership with Aspirations Diploma Plus High School in East New York, Brooklyn. The students created the mural as an anti-gun violence advertisement for the high school walls. The students researched ways to prevent gun violence, shared personal stories, and created the mural to address these pressing issues. The team employed a visual style taken from popular culture, involving bold messaging, bright colors, and repetition. The mural was designed to subliminally market the consequences of social disorder. The team also discussed how the media defines and brands lower income communities as areas of disorder, decay, and neglect. Social Traps promotes a powerful message of anti-gun violence to Aspirations students, with hopes that this message will spread beyond the high schools walls and into the streets.