An abstract art YEBO bienvenido welcome mural. What’s good, YEBOhood?!?

We hope you’re having a wonderful day and enjoying the sunny (and hot) weather.

In today’s post, we’ll be looking back at four incredible student projects that will have a lasting impact on our communities for years to come.

One of our goals at YEBO is to broaden the spectrum of what youth perceive as media. Of course mediums such as movies, television, radio, and music count as media. But we’re also surrounded by mediums of print and physical art. It’s important to remember that books, paintings, and even billboards play an impactful role in shaping culture and informing trends.

Within this context, we asked four cohorts of students to each design a piece of visual art that captured elements of their heritage, illustrated their vision for the future, and/or represented their communal values.

We connected the students to two local graffiti artists/muralists (Kate Scalf and Joaquin Gonzales), who engaged a co-creation process by first deeply empathizing with the students and helping them to surface aspects of their identity, which informed the design of the murals. McGlone Academy students painted three of the murals in The Confluence Center, while students participating in Radian Architecture’s Imagine the Possibilities program at Garden Place Academy painted a fourth piece and gifted it to Focus Points Family Resource Center.

Each of the creations tells a story, and each story acts as a declaration to the power of youth voice.

Here are some pictures from each journey:

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