Can Murals Change a City?

By Sarah Mihich, Marketing Intern

Can Murals Change a City?

“That’s what I love about where this one is,” says Dougher. “It’s a bus stop. Think how many hundreds of people are going to see it every day.” We are now seeing more murals and public art popping up everywhere in our community, but does it have an impact? A recent article titled, “Can Murals Change a Neighborhood” written by Sarah Goodyear talks about a large-scale art project that aims to do more than just be beautiful in Brownsville community, New York. Patrick Dougher the program director of Groundswell, a nonprofit organization that creates murals around New York, says that the key to Groundswell’s project is visibility. The imagery on the wall with strong, bold tagged words is the most outward expression of the positive effect Groundswell’s murals have on their community. The idea behind this project is to give the youth and the citizens of New York a constructive environment to express themselves.

This program is very similar to Arts for Learning Teaching Artist, Holly Combs who teaches art of inspiration through the medium of street art. You can learn more about her workshop here.