Last Thursday, our San Francisco Teen Mural Assistants gathered their research and began reviewing interviews, lesson plans, and song lyrics to decide on imagery for the mural they will create in the coming weeks. Elements of hip-hop, technology, and social networking surfaced as teams illustrated symbols and presented their ideas to the class.
As teens drew from their interview experiences, youth empowerment and technology surfaced as prominent themes in discussing how to make change in their communities. The energy in the room was astounding.
In just the prior meeting the TMAs met with Executive Director of the University of California Student Association, Matt Haney (ucsa.org). Haney revisited his experiences as a college student and spoke about his abilities in organizing young people, highlighting the value and potency of youth demonstrations. More specifically, he spoke on his involvement with the Obama campaign and the way technology was used to target young voters and how social media provided an outlet for college students to spread their political beliefs and be heard.
Another interview that proved to be extremely influential over the TMAs in San Francisco occurred a few weeks earlier with Davey D (daveyd.com), a nationally recognized Hip Hop artist, journalist, producer, and community activist also known as “the Hardest Working Man in Hip Hop.” Speaking largely from his experiences as a youth in the Bronx, he emphasized the important of using art, both visual and expressive, to cope with the personal struggles in a positive way. Davey D encouraged TMAs to be fully engaged in and informed about the cultural, social and political contexts around them. He highlighted the artistic and activist legacies of the Bay Area and urged Mural Assistants to “soak up” and build upon those histories as they generate new ideas. He also prepared TMAs to face challenge, “be grounded” and be resilient, assuring them, “you’ll need to dip into your well of knowledge and be able to re-adjust yourself. It’s improvisation.” Teen Mural Assistants appreciated the opportunity to speak with Davey D about how his career demonstrates art as a means of personal development. In his own words, “Hip hop is just an expression to center you to the larger truth: to be all you can be.”
By the end of the Design Workshop, TMAs had come up with 57 ideas for imagery to be included in the mural!
Remi, Jamari and Mauricio present an idea for imagery
TMA's encourage their fellow artists
