Projects

Showing 14 of 14 results

  • Maze of Awareness

    Leake and Watts and Groundswell partnered to inspire youth people in incarceration to gain awareness of their future options. The youth artists created a design centered on the visual metaphor of a...

  • Mapping Aspirations

    Groundswell worked in collaboration with Rikers Saturday Academy to create a mural inspired by the Nelson Mandela quote: “For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

  • Powerful Beyond

    Groundswell worked in collaboration with the Passages Academy at Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brownsville, Brooklyn to develop a three-panel interior mural in the spring of 2015.

  • Transformations

    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.

  • The Freedom Within

    Designed by a talented team of young women at the Rose M. Singer Center at Rikers Island, the mural imagines restorative futures for themselves and other women who have been or are incarcerated. To...

  • Live to Learn and Learn to Live

    Through this project, incarcerated teen artists had the unique opportunity to directly impact the jail environment which incarcerates them by transforming an industrial hallway into a blank canvas....

  • Wings of Fitness

    Wings of Fitness was created by incarcerated youth on Rikers Island. The mural illustrates personal responsibility, for both our health and well-being.

  • Dream, Heal, Change

    Dream, Heal, Change was created by a group of young women incarcerated at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island. This mural is inspired by the concept of metamorphosis - physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

  • Transformative Moments

    Transformative Moments was developed in partnership with the Ella McQueen Residential Center, a New York State juvenile detention center in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

  • Balance

    Created by East River Academy high school students incarcerated on Rikers Island, Balance explores how the Feng Shui ideal of balance might be realized in the students everyday lives.

  • The Guest House

    Ten Rikers Island inmates created a large mural based on the poem The Guest House by Rumi on the wall of the Eric M. Taylor Center at Rikers Island.

  • The Road Not Taken

    This mural aimed to improve the literacy skills and deepen understanding of poetry through reading and writing amongst students at the Rose M. Singer Center at the Austin H. McCormick Island Academy.

  • This Too Shall Pass

    This Too Shall Pass focuses on the dreams, wishes, and aspirations of the inmates at Rikers Island. The large mural was created in two sections by 18 incarcerated teenagers and adds color and adds color and beauty to a hallway in the jail.

  • Incarcerated Minds

    In the spring of 2008, Groundswell partnered with the New York City Department of Correction to create “Incarcerated Minds,” a mural designed by students at the Austin H. MacCormick Island Academy High School on Rikers Island Correctional Facility.