Uprooted/ reRooted A case study of socially engaged art practice and collaborative design for a more just future

The City of Arts Program’s Restored Spaces Initiative Uprooted/ reRooted A case study of socially engaged art practice and collaborative design for a more just future Uprooted/reRooted Project Credits

Acknowledgments A Restored Spaces Initiative project

This case study was collaboratively researched, ARTISTIC TEAM: Uprooted/reRooted was created by lead artist Marion Wilson conceptualized, and written by: and Restored Spaces founder Shari Hersh alongside muralist Eurhi Jones, and Beth Enson, Writer Community Design Leaders Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, and Agnes Ockovic. Shari Hersh, Director of Environmental Justice, Mural Arts COLLABORATORS: Dr. Luz Ruiz and her third-grade class and Priscilla Hopkins Gamar Markarian, Design Strategist and her third-grade classes at William Cramp Elementary School in 2017; mural assistants Maria Roman, Mike Reali, Russel Craig, Lucy Velez, Jose Villalobos, Graphic Design by: Gamar Markarian and Yanitza Pascual; Eric Okdeh and the artists at SCI Graterford; Marilyn Copy Editing by: Emma Wu Rodriguez and workshop attendees at the Mural Arts Philadelphia Porch Proofreading by: Emily Cooper Moore Light Kensington Storefront; Brad Carney and the Mural Arts Philadelphia Art Education class at Kensington CAPA; William Reed, Alfonso Alford, and This case study would not have been possible without the Deanda Logan from William Cramp Elementary School; Julius Ferraro and generous and thoughtful critical discourse, contribution of Ciara Williams from the Mural Arts Restored Spaces team; participants in Mural time, interviews, and documentation from the Uprooted/ Arts Philadelphia’s Guild program; David McShane, Zambia Greene, Michael reRooted project team: Agnes Ockovic, Leidy Burgos, Lillian Whittington, Carlos Vasquez, Ryan Spilman, Greg Christie, and Frisco Brown Cover Photo: Fontanez, Luz Ruiz, Eurhi Jones, Marion Wilson, Charito from Mural Arts. Mural detail, tamarind. Uprooted/ Morales, Deanda Logan, Alyssa Schimmel, and William Reed. reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, COURTYARD COLLABORATORS: Philadelphia Orchard Project: Phil Forsyth, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Support for the case study was provided by the Mural Arts Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp Alyssa Schimmel, Robyn Mello; Mario Mohan, Stacey Lindbloom, and Lawrence students & community members, Institute, which receives funding from The JPB Foundation, The Davis; Interpret Green: Craig Johnson. Cramp Elementary School, 3449 Kresge Foundation, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. North Mascher Street. Photo by PARTNERS: William Cramp Elementary School, Philadelphia Orchard Project, Michael Reali. Major support for the Environmental Justice Department is Interpret Green. Top Center: provided by the PTS Foundation. Mural detail, tomato. Uprooted/ FUNDERS: City of Philadelphia, City of Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Education, reRooted © City of Philadelphia FAO Schwarz Family Foundation, The JPB Foundation, PTS Foundation, Stavros Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, © 2020 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Niarchos Foundation. Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp Philadelphia Mural Arts Advocates. All rights reserved. No students & community members, part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or Uprooted/reRooted © 2018 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Marion Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by by any means, without written permission from the City of Wilson, Eurhi Jones, Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Agnes Ockovic. Michael Reali. Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. 2019 ADDITIONAL CREDITS PHASE 2 COLLABORATORS: Community Design Leaders Jamie Dixon, Mileika Flores Medina, Kathy Garcia-Soler, Mildred Gonzalez, Rosalene Isaac, Delfina Jimenez, Mayra Rivera, and Katty Soler-Prado; mural assistants Diana Gonzalez, Laila Islam, Brianna Hayes, Selina Zhou, and Jenny Yim; Kyla van Buren, Kathy Poole, and Michael Bules from Mural Arts; poets Raquel Salas and Beth Enson; and Ieva Sayles and Connie Johnson from William Cramp Elementary School.

PARTNER: Providence Center Teen Leaders Academy and Charito Morales. FUNDER: PwC. the individual liberty to access urban Restored Spaces Initiative projects ‘Projects that resources: it is a right to change operate at the intersection of make foundational ourselves by changing the city. It socially-engaged public artwork improvements to the is, moreover, a common rather and environmental justice activism, than an individual right since this addressing specific issues of urban fabric must emerge transformation inevitably depends environmental racism via creative from the communities upon the exercise of a collective disruptions to the status quo in themselves and grow power to reshape the processes of pursuit of foundational change. directly out of the urbanization. The freedom to make Restored Spaces focuses on four community’s priorities, and remake our cities and ourselves main goals in each of its projects: is, I want to argue, one of the most using grassroots research precious yet most neglected of our - Environmental and Climate Justice and exploratory cultural human rights.”1 - Community Capacity Building experiences to engage - Equity and Horizontal people’s stories, interests The aspiration for this case study is Collaborations and challenges rather to provide a model of collaborative - Care and Re-knitting Social Fabric creativity that, in the words of the than responding to New Alphabet School, can “scale In an effort to rectify and activate policy and institutional rhizomatically,”2 connecting like- around environmental justice priorities.’- Paraphrased minded projects and practitioners issues, Restored Spaces facilitates from Lucia Sanroman, through the web, word of mouth, and projects that come directly Yerba Buena Center for the synchronicities with which the from communities, centering planet sometimes provokes needed their visions, expertise, and the Arts This case study provides a penetrating look at The project took on a radical reorganization of and life-giving disruptions. New knowledge. Environmental the successful strategies, positive outcomes, the relationship between artist and community Alphabet School is a self-organized hazards disproportionately affect and salient learning that emerged from in pursuit of a vision both local and planetary, school providing international marginalized communities, Uprooted/reRooted, a longitudinal project both personal and communal, resulting in colloquia (online during COVID,) especially communities of color. “We hold important that at William Cramp Elementary School in collective authorship of artworks and creative whose focus on criticism as a To imagine and practice a more Philadelphia that provides a model of attending processes that held profound meaning and practice of shared responsibility and just future, projects must prioritize each of us needs to be to relationships in the service of addressing beauty. Uprooted/reRooted used numerous care has been inspiring. We hope dismantling the systems that critical thinkers, good the impacts of environmental racism through strategies to redress environmental racism and Uprooted/reRooted can become maintain these disparities and build decision makers, and give collective action. Environmental justice to foster horizontal collaborations based on one node in a collaborative network relational networks, both in their principled leadership… requires that those people most impacted by equity and respect for local expertise. Care and of projects sharing methods, goals and in their practice. (We) change ourselves environmental harms envision and are the concern pervaded the myriad large-scale and vocabulary, learning, and inspiration decision-makers of the solutions. Initiated intimate encounters through which community to generate positive change on The Restored Spaces Initiative, to change the world… by the community and produced by the members drew on local skills and creativity to a scale much greater than each founded by Shari Hersh, supports and among other things, Restored Spaces Initiative, a program of the identify and reimagine under-utilized spaces individual organization or social communities to create self-sustaining move from individualism Environmental Justice department of Mural within and around the school, transforming practitioner can achieve. projects that grow directly from their to collectivism.” -William Arts Philadelphia, the project was undertaken one such space from a barren and forbidding own priorities and take collective Goldsby, Reconstructing action to address harms affecting in partnership with the school, artist Marion place to a vibrant, welcoming garden with Rage Wilson, key participants, and ultimately with hand-made hardscaping and lush botanical their specific neighborhoods other artists, non-profits, community members which reflects the actual vitality and 1 Harvey, David. “The Right To The City,” New as well as the systems of harm and leaders. Wilson says that despite the resilience of the community and serves as the Left Review, September/October 2008. https:// affecting ourselves, our families, newleftreview.org/issues/II53/articles/david-harvey- statistics of scarcity that have been used to site of ongoing community collaborations. The the-right-to-the-city our communities, and our planet. describe the Fairhill community, this project strategies and perspectives explored through Communities, artists, and activists Top Left: on every level grew out of an experience of Uprooted/reRooted catalysed a community to 2 From “Caring.” Conversation by Helena Reckitt pursuing environmental justice Mural detail, quenepas (Spanish limes). and Elke Krasny, part of New Alphabet School Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural collective abundance. “Within a ‘food desert,’ articulate obstacles, envision alternatives, and virtual event June 2020. HKW/New Alphabet School. choose to partner with the Restored Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, we shared meals and grew food; within a bring these visions to reality. David Harvey, https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2019/ Spaces Initiative due to its work Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, new_alphabet_school/texte_new_alphabet_school/ Cramp students & community members, Cramp ‘heat island,’ we grew trees; with no public Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & new_alphabet_school_caring.php at the crux between the strategic Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. transportation, we took field hikes. As a team of Geography at The Graduate Center, CUNY, Photo by Michael Reali. 50 women we created a matrilineal project of writes, “The right to the city is far more than love and joy.”

4 5 and the tactical,3 allowing them access to the strategic advocacy of the inintiative’s parent organization, Mural Arts, and its long-standing relationships with allied entities in city government and the non-profit sector. The projects that emerge from these partnerships create horizontal collaborations and collective authorship, and foster friendships and communities of care to re-knit social networks and transform the urban environment. Restored Spaces Initiative projects raise questions in an open-ended, mosaic approach. Their creative interventions shift perspectives to effect structural and policy change, creating socially- engaged at sites that become community spaces and strategic hubs for cooperative thinking, spatial inventiveness, and environmental restoration.

3 In his article “Socially Engaged Contemporary Art: Tactical and Strategic Manifestations,” Thompson identifies the strategic impulse of larger arts organizations to effect structural change through long-term engagement with strategy-oriented institutions like community centers and government entities. He distinguishes this strategy from tactical projects facilitated by individual artists or small ad hoc groups to catalyze new ideas that shift perspectives and encourage nuanced, intersectional awareness. Thompson, Nato. Socially Engaged Contemporary Art: Tactical and Strategic Manifestations. Animating Democracy: A Working Guide to the Landscape of Arts for Change. https:// animatingdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/LCrane% 20Trend%20Paper.pdf

Right: Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community members, Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael Reali.

Following Pages, p. 8 and p. 9 Top Left: Pictured (L to R): Dr. Luz Ruiz, Alyssa Schimmel, Marion Wilson, and Agnes Ockovic.

Bottom Left: Pictured (L to R): Michael Reali and Eurhi Jones. Photo by Marion Wilson.

Top Right: Mural detail, tamarind. Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian 6 Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, 7 Cramp students & community members, Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael Reali. Overview p.10 . Project Brief/Goals . Project Collaboration . The Site . The Context

Project Timeline p.18

Glossary of Artistic Process p.22

Project Highlights p.26 . Creating a Shared Knowledge Base and Drawing as Literature of a Place . Centering Local Experiences and Knowledges/Conocimientos . Horizontal Collaboration and Making Together

Lessons Learned p.72

The Project Now p.76

What’s Next? p.79 Project Brief/ Project Goals

From its inception, Uprooted/ of reimagining the outdoor spaces Southwark Schools; Mr. Alford, the reRooted has followed the lead in response to this articulated Cramp Elementary building engineer, of the community in setting the desire by the community. With the who spoke at the project dedication agenda for the project. After the goal of creating opportunity for the and supported the domestic violence community worked with The Trust community to lead the process, awareness aspect of the project; for Public Land to complete a green Restored Spaces explored making a participants at Porchlight, a project schoolyard on the south side of Hub space at the school where social serving people in recovery; inmates at the school, community members and cultural activities and sharing Graterford Prison; and the hundreds of advocated for further involvement could happen, through placing an community members who have taken and transformation of the school’s Artist in Residence there. The vision part in various aspects of the project outdoor spaces, including murals was to support a collaborative model to date along with members of the to bring beauty and color to its of working with the community Restored Spaces team and other teams walls. The Restored Spaces Initiative toward shared goals. from Mural Arts Philadelphia. All of became involved in the next stages these people have had equal value to the project, and their efforts were equally instrumental in creating the numerous positive results. Hersh oversaw all of these complex and intersecting elements of the project; handled the many technical and logistical challenges that Project presented themselves daily, requiring sensitive and thoughtful management Collaboration to preserve positive relationships with every participant; and ensured that the An impressive cast joined forces listening skills and a mission in overarching goals of the project and of to create Uprooted/reRooted. climate change activism. Numerous Restored Spaces were met on an ongoing Community Design Leaders (CDL) additional partners contributed basis. Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, vital resources, perspectives, and and Agnes Ockovic; the Restored energy along the way, including The multivalent leadership team Spaces Initiative led by Shari Hersh; the Providence Center and Charito of Uprooted/reRooted generated a Top Left: Morales; poet Raquel Salas Rivera; Mural detail, plant cells. Uprooted/reRooted © Artist in Residence Marion Wilson; multitude of sub-projects. Each member City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy and William Cramp Elementary Craig Johnson of Interpret Green; of the team drew upon personal Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes School were the central partners in William Reed, the Cramp community Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & and organizational connections and community members, Cramp Elementary School, conceiving the project. During the school coordinator, who tirelessly partners in pursuing their aspect of the 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael initial concept phase, the central helped in expediting schedules, project. Uprooted/reRooted developed Reali. partnership team expanded to setting meetings, and trouble- a fractal quality with a unifying theme: Top Right: include Philadelphia Orchard shooting; Julius Ferraro, who horizontal collaboration that sparked Drawing of a cell by a third-grade student in Dr. coordinated the Mural Arts crew, Ruiz’s class. Project, which developed a detailed an atmosphere of shared inspiration, and creative curriculum on plant and assisted de-paving contractors learning, and creativity. Bottom Right: science for the students at Cramp to navigate weather conditions and Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Elementary, and, at the end of tight school schedules; Kyla van Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, the first summer, muralist Eurhi Buren, who spanned two different Cramp students & community members, Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Jones, who brought muralist skills projects in leading the second Photo by Michael Reali. and experience, as well as deep group of CDLs at both Cramp and

10 11 1937 Assessment Grades from the Homeowners’ Loan Corporation - Credit Risk-taking The Site D “HAZARDOUS” The Restored Spaces Initiative expends a great C “DEFINITELY DECLINING” deal of time and resource in selecting the sites for its projects, using a rubric of community- Assessment grades A and B are not mapped. identified need that examines the environmental harms a community is enduring in terms of heat islands, lack of accessible green space, fresh food Litter Index: Block Score deserts, and the crime and litter that result from William Cramp policies of redlining, gentrification, and scarce 3.25 - 4.0 public resources. The map provided overlays 2.25 - 3.25 Elementary School redlined neighborhoods with the litter index to indicate how a high litter index is related Score Reference to disinvestment. (See sidebar.) Government 1 = Little to no litter entities and funders often have specific 2 = Litter in the amount that can be picked up by one person requirements in selecting a site or a theme, but 3 = Litter in the amount that would Hersh is adamant that the site and the content need a team to clean up 4 = Litter that would require a of a project emerge from the community itself. large cleanup effort and/or heavy She chooses to undertake projects in response machinery to remove debris to articulated community priorities, where Scores ranging from 1 - 2.25 groundwork has been laid for transformation and are not mapped to take place. Despite years of disinvestment, the Fairhill section of Kensington remains a strong and vibrant community. William Cramp School was selected as the site for Uprooted/ reRooted for this quality as well as for the existing community-identified need for remediation, and for the site’s capacity to provide a shared green space for the neighborhood. William Cramp Elementary serves a low-income, primarily Puerto Rican community, with additional residents from across Latin America. Prior to the inception of Uprooted/reRooted, the school participated in a Philadelphia School District initiative to greenscape school campuses to manage stormwater runoff, in partnership with The Trust for Public Land and the Philadelphia Water Department. This earlier project involved students in project design and feedback, resulting in the replacement of asphalt with artificial turf, play equipment, a running track, and plantings, among other amenities.

Redlining maps, created by the federal government in the 1930s for every city in the nation, rated those neighborhoods with predominantly minority residents as “hazardous,” preventing their access to affordable homeowner’s loans for property Map Design by Gamar Markarian upkeep and improvement, eroding the wealth of families, and leading to the economic decline of neighborhoods. Map References: Neighborhoods designated Hazardous in the 30s are currently 1. https://cleanphl.org/ suffering the effects of nearly a century of disinvestment. 2. https://nextcity.org/features/view/redlining- Long-term residents are being displaced by people with white- race-philadelphia-segregation skin privilege and by developers, aided by urban policies that 3. https://controller.phila.gov/philadelphia- promote gentrification. https://www.urbandisplacement.org/ audits/mapping-the-legacy-of-structural-racism- redlining in-philadelphia/ 12 13 The Context

William Reed, Community School Also important was the Providence Coordinator at Cramp Elementary, Center’s Community Organizer, describes the misperceptions that Charito Morales, whose youth neighborhoods like Kensington development program there provides receive in the media and one of the area’s few outlets for young public imagination. “For future people. Additionally impactful was practitioners who hope to duplicate Cramp School’s Principal, Deanda the success that Mural Arts had, it Logan, and her cultivation of over 50 is helpful to remember some key partnerships to serve her student’s facts about similar neighborhoods. needs. This laid the groundwork Many of the neighborhoods which for opening the school to the stand to benefit most from a similar community, working with outside project often have a reputation community organizations, as well which elides the vibrant patchwork as collaborating with parents and of relationships and social networks community members. Also, to a which sustain the neighborhood smaller degree, the school conducted community. In the case of a needs assessment and organized Kensington, the neighborhood had a committee with parents and been labeled ‘the badlands’ and had community members through the been the site of many news stories community school program. These focusing on the negative parts of the provided some of the insights and neighborhood. These labels omit the parent contacts that would go on to fact that similar neighborhoods often be utilized by the Mural Arts project.” have a long history of disinvestment, redlining, and other practices which have left them with fewer resources than other, more affluent neighborhoods. However, despite these practices, residents of the Top Right: Uprooted/reRooted in process, April 21, 2018. community have, out of necessity, Photo by Steve Weinik. become very resourceful about Bottom Right: connecting with one another, finding Uprooted/reRooted dedication at Cramp resources and networks of support. Elementary School, October 23, 2019. Photo by Michael Reali. In addition to this resourcefulness and resiliency of the residents, Following Pages, p. 16 and p. 17 oftentimes there is a small core of Left: Dr. Luz Ruiz with her student during north dedicated activists in the community. courtyard transformation, April 21, 2018. Photo These organizers and activists can by Steve Weinik. lay the groundwork for a successful Top Right: community-led project. In the case Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian of Cramp School’s project, that was Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, manifested by the local community Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community development corporation, HACE and members, Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael Reali. their Neighbor Advisory Committee Program Director, Stasia Monteiro, Bottom Right: North courtyard transformation, June 2017. who organizes residents and holds Photo by Marion Wilson. monthly community meetings.

14 15 This project represents a space of creative learning, where students, families, teachers, and other community members gather to make connections between family traditions, growing food, and an appreciation for nature. It is a great learning space with many opportunities to teach ecological literacy.” Dr. Ruiz Top Left: Mural detail, sunflower life cycle. Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community members, Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael Reali.

ort ortrd rorto April 2018 W Tioga Street Artist Marion Wilson meets with North courtyard construction begins. Cramp staff and neighbors to find out . Asphalt and soil replaced with clean organic fill. what people's preoccupations are. ot er . Transformation day with Philly Orchard N Mascher Street She spends a lot of time talking to de Project and local community. e roet everyone, making presentations to Building the garden July - August 2017 and gardening. r t leadership team, school partners, edto Led by local community to explore, learn, Painting color r and parent groups. April-July 2018 October 2019 and share their expertise. blocks on rodto . Field trips. fence wall. Facades facing the . Community-led workshops. north courtyard and June-July 2019 . Study of artists and precedents. Mascher Street Continued mural . Transforming the north courtyard production in Cramp's Roo . Reorienting existing benches and N Howard Street containers, adding picnic tables, painting Art Room. the ground, and gardening outside using Gardening and corporate existing containers. paint day in north courtyard. W Ontario Street r e ort eed rodto ortrd r e o r e March 2018 ‘Before’ January- Fall 2018 tee February 2018 Begin mural production in Room 118 Roots and superheroes May 2019 and Art room and at Graterford and workshops in Room 118. Community, stakeholder, Project receives funding from The Trust for Kensington Storefront. CDLs keep sketchbooks. and school feedback on Public Land in partnership with an individual err mural design private donor and Philadelphia Orchard pe tdo Project. Able to pay stipends to a team of six rompt: Draw a plant that community members to water the north you have seen in the and south Courtyards neighborhood or the city a ort plant that you love and/or ortrd r a plant that means oept something oept orop to you August 2017 Fall 2017 March-May 2019 Late Winter/Early Spring 2017 Strife Series of six workshops on . Transforming Room 118/the boys Healing Garden November 2018 Saturdays including the poetry shower into an open studio/herbarium. and Teaching Circle eed . Community engagement via plant Lessons with artists Eurhi Jones o r e workshop and training CDLs drawings in multiple contexts, such as back Food, Water, Life Empathy and Marion Wilson, Alyssa on painting skills. to school and resource fair. Culture Kitchen Sensory Garden e Schimmel (POP), Agnes Ockovic, January- Producing the mural with a Leidy Burgos with Ms. February 2019 larger CDL group at trt ‘After’ r e ort ortrd Morales’ class. Mural designs approval. Providence Center. rp Fall 2017 Workshops using collage Get community, eetr oo Groundbreaking Celebration: dancing, and observing plants stakeholder, and school music, food, courtyard design unveiled, through microscope; open Project Planning: feedback. retaining wall painted, story collection. studio every Thursday with November 2016 Planting with Alyssa Schimmel of CDLs and Dr. Ruiz's In-School Activities: Philadelphia Orchard Project and third-grade class in March 2017 dedication of the Juneberry tree Room 118 18 in honor of Indiginous Peoples Day. 19 This project was creating something without words, something that speaks to all people. Gardening is a language of its own, and we all see it differently, experience it differently. Some never experienced a garden at all. I wanted to take our project and show the neighborhood that there can be beauty, healing, and substance even in the darkest places. That there is hope for neighborhoods that need the beauty, healing, and unity that a garden can bring to all walks of life.” Community Design Leaders during Summer Academy. Pictured (L to R): Delma Rodriguez, Agnes Ockovic, Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Delia Colon. Ambiente Ecologica Summer Academy, August 2017. Photo by Marion Wilson. Leidy Burgos from home or workplace, where and an agreement that those most harmed by Shared Knowledge Base: A body of Glossary people gather to imagine, socialize, environmental racism be in charge of designing information generated and exchanged by and discuss, fostering the core of the remediation and restitution. First identified participants that informs and provides civic engagement.5 by the United Church of Christ’s report “Toxic meaning to a project, drawing on a wider of Artistic Wastes and Race in the United States” in 1987, context and providing visual and semantic Community Design Leader: A drafted and adopted in 1991 at the National cohesion to the project as a whole. Process member of the community serving as People of Color Environmental Leadership a paid citizen designer, exercising the Summit, and put forward in the “Jemez Friendships and Relational Networks: The Collective Authorship: Creativity is a power to transform their community Principles for Democratic Organizing” in 1996 network of close, authentic relationships and communal rather than an individual and themselves, while gaining (https://www.ejnet.org/ej/jemez.pdf).7 friendships that arise between participants endeavor, group ownership of the lifelong design and leadership skills.6 through sharing life experiences past and artwork is prioritized, and creative Community Design Leaders generate Grassroots, Collaborative Research: present, and taking time for extended actions arise from the synergy of the collective, mutually beneficial Using site analysis and evaluation, guided conversations, enjoying meals, and relaxing group. change aligned with their own observations, and artist study and drawing, together. Relational networks are the key priorities and expertise. Hired at the project participants gather information and element in re-knitting social fabric constantly Community Capacity Building: onset of the design process, they play perspectives to inform project design. Involves torn by violent and oppressive social policies To use the project as a regenerative an essential role in co-producing all participants in conceptualizing, negotiating, and realities. This connects to the ethics of ingredient, “to recognize, build on phases of the project, participating designing, and testing solutions to collective caring that forms the foundation of Restored and work to maximize the local area intimately in generating and problems. Spaces’ work. Principal Deanda Logan stated, assets [and expertise] of individuals, developing concepts and designs, “The beauty of the building translates into families, organizations, and others building, making, painting, and Horizontal Collaboration: Creating structures people’s hearts and there’s more kindness and to share and nurture an improved conducting evaluation. and processes that subvert power hierarchies caring and warmth and we’re very, very grateful quality of life within that local area.”4 to access the intelligence and creativity in the for that.” To deploy the resources sustaining Complicating a Topic: Using a room in a relational network for mutual benefit. the project for maximum benefit of variety of perspectives to deepen This horizontal power structure extends to the Site Selection: Restored Spaces uses a complex local social and economic capital. people’s understanding of the agencies and organizations partnering in the overlay of environmental, economic, political, contexts, forces, and systems behind project, encompassing the entire team, not and social criteria to identify potential sites for Community Expertise: Recognition current conditions. just the immediate participants, artists, and its projects. This rubric involves the existence that local residents possess skills, designers. of environmental and economic harms at the treasures of their own and familial Creative Interventions: Temporary site, centers the needs of communities over experience, and the most accurate art practices or installations that the political or administrative expediency of a knowledge of their neighborhood’s interrupt mindsets and provoke potential choice, and prioritizes communities features and realities. Local residents shifts in perspective. These can that have articulated goals for change and have include gameplay; activities 7 Palmer, Bryan. “The History of Environmental Justice in Five invited Restored Spaces to take part in their are best positioned to be decision- Minutes.” Natural Resources Defense Council. https:// makers with the experience to including drawing, writing poetry www.nrdc.org/stories/history-environmental-justice-five-minutes. urban transformation. identify assets, foresee challenges, and storytelling; and small-scale and devise workable solutions within public artworks that require a second their own community. look. Art interventions address situations outside the art world to Community Hub: A physical effect positive change. Top Left: location dedicated to creative Herbarium drawing “Sunflower” with Dr. Ruiz’s Environmental Justice: A global third-grade class. Ink and fabric on rice paper. projects and interactions, where community members can recognition that environmental Bottom Right: consistently experience a meeting of destruction is racialized, Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, minds and a mutual outlet for their harming people of color and Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, creativity for community benefit. The underdeveloped nations far in excess Cramp students & community members,Cramp of white, middle-class peoples; Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. site becomes what Ray Oldenburg Photo by Michael Reali. defines as a Third Place, separate

5 No author listed. Trust for Public Places, “Ray Oldenburg.” https://www.pps.org/article/roldenburg. 4 Price-Spratan, Townsend and Goldsby, William. Reconstructing Rage: Transformative Reentry in the 6 Harvey, David. “The Right to the City.” New Left Era of Mass Incarceration. City, Peter Lang Review. #53, September–October 2008 22 Publishing, Inc. 2012. https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii53/articles/david- 23 harvey-the-right-to-the-city. Through projects, we share knowledge and collectively learn to practice and build a more just future. We become practitioners of change as we redress environmental issues.”

Planting The Spiral. Photo by Marion Wilson. 24 Shari Hersh 25 01 02 03 Creating a Shared Centering Horizontal Knowledge Base Local Experiences Collaboration and and Drawing as and Knowledges/ Making Together Literature of a Place Conocimientos - p. 56

Top Left: - p. 28 - p. 42 Mural detail, beets. Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community members, Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael Reali.

26 27 boy’s locker room, and welcomed the community to attend drawing 1. Shared workshops and seed-starting activities there. The group evolved to Knowledge include regular adult attendees who became the Community Leadership and Design Team, whose members Base and were later termed Community Design Leaders, or CDLs, a group of Drawing as dedicated parents and community members who midwifed the project Literature of as a whole. The project was augmented to a Place include the team’s vision to include greening of the north courtyard. Restored Spaces hired CDLs to help Uprooted/reRooted focuses on bring this plan to fruition, honoring experiences of emigration and the local expertise that emerges immigration, and relationship with from daily, lived knowledge of and study of plants as a metaphor place and from shared formative and defining cultural practice. In experiences as equal to that arising addition to the use of plants in from professional training. CDLs traditional cuisine and medicines, have an equal say on important plants provide a way to find and decisions with artists, designers, build belonging, connect in a new and other project staff. Paying land while maintaining ties to the participants for their contributions old, and tend to the tension that dignifies their time, energy, expertise, persists in inhabiting two worlds. and creative intelligence, and The Cramp School chose migration channels vital financial resources as the project’s point of departure; into the community. this formative life experience served as a basis for shared knowledge and Marion Wilson and the CDLs perspectives from the outset. Wilson, organized a summer academy, who for a decade has been building titled Ambiente Ecologica, to serve non-hierarchical collaborations as the incubator for the courtyard through drawing, designing, and project design and to further draw gardening, began Uprooted/reRooted out and share community expertise. with a school and community plant Ambiente Ecologica took place herbarium. On treated rice paper, outside in the north courtyard in the students and family were invited broiling sun, and attendees braved to draw local or familiar plants, the heat to facilitate workshops to Top Left: Original collage on the north courtyard by vegetables, or trees. This was a way share their skill sets and take part in Lillian Fontanez and her granddaughter. to build ecological literacy through the creative process of transforming Top Right: plant identification and also to build that forbidding space. Participants Mural production in Room 110. a collective portfolio of drawings. led workshops on their areas of Pictured (L to R): Marie Roman and Eurhi Jones. Wilson comments that drawing is so Photo by Marion Wilson. interest and expertise, including often a private, individual practice; traditional cuisine of Puerto Rico Bottom Right: she was interested in making drawing and herbal remedies. Wilson Original artwork by Marion Wilson. The 12-year herbarium. Photo by David Broda. a public, shared activity that could remembers, “It was pretty rugged, become a non-verbal, common like urban courtyard camping or language for the project. She held something. But it was important to open studio sessions each week at inhabit that space the same way that the “hub space” in a repurposed teachers and students were currently 28 29 experiencing it during the school to gather ideas and learn about year. With architectural trace paper, local greenspace design. Field trips I gave out site plans of the courtyard provided another opportunity for the and collectively we drew dozens of team to share unstructured time, get designs before we came up with the to know one another, and develop three themed gardens. ...Drawing trust and connection. as well as sharing food together and just sitting together and being in This period of workshops, reading, that space became a language that observation, drawing, and discussing we could share and collect around.” became the core of the project’s Some of the plants in the herbarium shared knowledge base from which were chosen to populate the gardens, to work together on the project’s and served as the specimens for Dr. visual and conceptual design, Ruiz’s third-grade classroom to learn underpinning the project’s cohesion. about plants and horticulture. Shared knowledge arose from informal discussions centered on Wilson intentionally introduced non-privileged bodies of knowledge CDLs and participants to the work and experiences of deep concern, of a wider circle of artists during value, and power to participants. Ambiente Ecologica in 2017. CDLs The New Alphabet School upholds and Cramp parents, many of Puerto “forms of knowledge production Rican birth and descent as well as that stem from anecdote, informality from all over Latin America, studied and collectivity, in contrast to contemporary Latin American increasingly marketised formal artists, contemplating how their educational systems.”8 The informal Left: Pictured (L to R): Leidy Burgos, Marion work explores social and political discussions during Ambiente Wilson, Agnes Ockovic. themes relevant to the community. Ecologica included reflection on This research awakened participants cultural and social traumas of Bottom Right: Mural study for south wall. to the complex and profound ways colonialism and encounters with that prior artists have grappled mainland USA racism, helping form with issues of identity and social relationships of trust and solidarity justice, expanding participants’ among the participants that moved visual and conceptual vocabularies. the project toward a deeper territory She writes, “Through the billboards of reference. and candy stacks of Felix Gonzalez I used the dictum in collaborative projects that ‘everyone does Torres we discussed collective The school and schoolyard of Cramp everything’ - a strategy learned from Doug Ashford of Group loss and empathy; and through Elementary became a Community Material. Doris Salcedo’s work we came to Hub for the project, where students, understand how a space of seeming teachers, artists, and community absence could be reimagined as members met to conduct research, The image of what we called ‘the pizza’ was revelatory for a place with presence. Through reflect, discuss, draw, write poetry, me. Normally murals are designed by a lead artist and then conversations about these artists’ plan and design, plant and harvest, images we developed the themes share meals and recipes, and form community members paint the lead artist’s design. It was of strife, domestic violence, friendships. The site became a Ray a profound experience for me (a painter with 20 years’ food abundance, empathy, and Oldenburg-style Third Place (see play.” Doris Salcedo later had the glossery). experience) to re-paint the drawing of a third grader - to opportunity to visit the Cramp site channel his thinking, his mark-making, and sense of color as I and witness the project that her was making it large. It was a complete democratizing experience work in part inspired. Ambiente Ecologica took many field trips over and to me is the underlying strength of the mural. We all the course of the summer, visiting arrived with sensibilities and skills that we traded and shared the Underground Railroad Gardens, throughout.” the gardens at Fairhill Cemetery, local arboretums, as well as other 8 From “Caring.” Conversation by Helena Reckitt and orchards and gardens in the vicinity, Elke Krasny, part of New Alphabet School virtual event 30 June 2020. 31 Marion Wilson Studies for the north courtyard. Original artwork by Marion Wilson.

Original design of north courtyard by Agnes Ockovic. A page from Leidy Burgos’ sketchbook.

32 33 This Third Place filled a profound an ongoing, multi-lensed record of is a member of Sustaining All Life, of the Uprooted/reRooted murals, need; one participant shared that the project’s progress, an archive an international climate change organizing them conceptually, and before the project commenced, she of drawings by CDLs, students, project devoted to transformational sensitively integrating participant had felt “encerrado” (imprisoned) community members, and artists listening activities that help activist and student designs. Being a mother in her home. The team did extensive which became part of the literature organizations work together better herself, Jones found commonality outreach to their community, of place and the shared knowledge through sharing their stories, with the many other mothers tabling at events to invite people to base of the project. developing strong relationships participating in the project; her participate in Ambiente Ecologica, both internally and externally, and extensive relationships with project attending design workshops, and As project participants progressed addressing racism, classism, and participants allowed her to find participating in other smaller from drawing botanicals to oppression. Initially, Jones painted exactly the drawing or text she events of shorter duration, to offer growing live plants to researching murals “to bring nature to the needed to complete the mural a wide range of opportunities for and leading Ambiente Ecologica, cities,” which led her to think more designs. Her technical expertise the community to develop personal from designing to constructing directly about climate change. She resolved the many challenges of the connections via the project. the green space and gardens in has since become a climate artist site, including enormous walls with Ambiente Ecologica also provided the schoolyard, from designing to interested in the interdependence of almost no windows, and layers upon occasions for participants to teach helping paint the four aspects of the the food chain, and uses her mural layers of brown paint that had been classes on topics of personal wraparound mural for the school practice as an element of her work used to cover over the years. significance. Taking leadership in building, successive phases of the as a climate activist. Decades of Perhaps most importantly, she was this way validated participants’ project have provided rich material experience with murals enabled her able to subsume her own sensibility knowledge and expertise, disrupting for a plant science curriculum co- to pull together the multiplicity of to achieve the shared vision of the the internalized oppression related to designed and implemented with participants’ drawing languages and whole, a critical skill in service to class and ethnicity that can interfere Philadelphia Orchard Project by make them into coherent elements collective authorship. with people’s self-concept and the school’s former third-grade capacity to challenge unjust social teacher, Dr. Luz Ruiz. She reflects, structures. The slow development of “The project represents a space of the project allowed for participants creative learning, where students, to grow into their roles, and develop families, teachers, and other the strong, lasting relationships community members gathered to with each other and Wilson that make connections between family supported the magnitude of the traditions, growing food, and an project they were undertaking. appreciation for nature. … It’s a great learning space with many Ambiente Ecologica helped CDLs opportunities to teach ecological locate their project in a larger literacy.” context of Latin American artwork focused on liberated expression Team members also worked with and social justice. Wilson spoke Eurhi Jones, Marion Wilson, and of bringing “more artists into the classrooms of students to develop room.” Ockovic reflected, “Me dio the design and motifs for the murals, mucha oportunidad de sacar de creating imagery inspired by source mí ...y desarrollar… el arte que yo materials including contemporary tenía escondido.” (It gave me a lot of Latin American art; botanical opportunity to unpack and develop drawings and photographs of the art that I had hidden inside plants, flowers and seeds; and the of me.) CDLs documented their children’s and community’s own learning through notes and drawings live and microscope observations. kept in project sketchbooks. Agnes Jones, an experienced muralist Bottom Right and Following Pages, Ockavic’s sketchbook became a with a sophisticated sense of p. 36 and p. 37: Field trip to Room 118 artist residency studio. crucial tool for documenting both color, practices deep listening to Photo by Marion Wilson. the progress of the project, her issues of social justice and climate heritage recipes, and her own inner change to develop connections and unfolding. The sketchbooks formed relationships with participants. She

34 35 36 37 Summer Academy, August 2018. Photo by Marion Wilson. Original artwork by Lillian Fontanez.

Design and planting scheme of the Spiral in Uprooted/reRooted in process, June 21, 2019. the north courtyard by Marion Wilson. Photo by Steve Weinik.

38 39 Drawing workshop at Cramp’s resource fair. A page from Agnes Ockovic’s’ sketchbook. Photo by Marion Wilson.

40 41 perspectives of colonized people in the face of colonizing world views 2. Center seeking to erase that knowledge and awareness. To experience being Local taught in class by a person of one’s own ethnicity and in one’s own primary language, about cultural Experiences wealth belonging to one’s own heritage, is hugely validating for first and and second generation immigrant students.

Knowledges/ During Ambiente Ecologica, participants researched and Conocimientos envisioned the development and design of Uprooted/reRooted. They explored concepts relating Like the Slow Food movement, to migration and displacement, Uprooted/reRooted advances the identifying the relevant themes of values of Slow Art, devoting extensive empathy, healing, strife, and culture, time to developing the relationships especially in relation to food and of care and concern that have given agriculture. These themes became rise to a deeply cohesive project the basis for the designs of the design and development process. three zones in the north courtyard Wilson has cultivated community (Culture Kitchen, Healing Garden stewardship and ecological learning and Teaching Circle, and Sensory while favoring non-dominant bodies Garden) and the murals for the four of knowledge alongside academic facades of the school. Participants pursuits, land-based cultures also grew a garden containing over consumerism, and collective some of the plants included in the authorship over individual artistic herbarium. The three primary CDLs expression. drew on their individual areas of interest and expertise to devise the The Team connected Uprooted/ designs and meanings of the three reRooted with the school’s chosen contiguous gardens. The Culture Top Left: theme of migration, using plants Kitchen, brainchild of CDL Agnes A page from Agnes Ockovic’s’ sketchbook. and art to talk about the processes Ockovic, holds the raised beds where Right: of uprooting and rerooting that ingredients for sofrito are grown, Ambiente Ecologica Summer Academy, July accompany displacement. They and embodies the values of Food, 2017. invited community members from Water, and Life. The Healing Garden Following Pages, p. 44 and p. 45 the surrounding neighborhood and Teaching Circle addresses Top Left: the theme of Strife. Its raised beds Summer Academy. Photo by Marion Wilson. to join the project and share their knowledge and skills, to take part in contain calming and soothing herbs Botton Left: the Ambiente Ecologica workshops, like lavender, thyme, and calendula, Fall harvest from the north courtyard in Room 118. Photo by Marion Wilson. and to design and facilitate embraced by a semicircle of benches workshops with students at William lending to contemplation and Bottom Right: Collage of the seating with planters for north Cramp Elementary about their learning, as envisioned by Leidy courtyard by Leidy Burgos. conocimientos (traditional wisdom) Burgos, who shared trauma healing concerning herbs and traditional modalities with the project. The healing. The word conocimiento Sensory Garden, designed to appeal contains a profound history to the youngest students at the and pedagogy in the Americas, school with an array of pleasurable reaffirming the earth-based cultural colors, flavors, and scents, embodies the theme of Empathy. Situated right 42 knowledge and resulting political 43 outside the Head Start classroom, it “Invitábamos a personas que querían “...something full of love, was masterminded by CDL Lillian sembrar ciertas cosas, pero mucha because at the beginning it was Fontanez, who was inspired by her gente no sabe mucho de plantas… all like a deserted cemetery… grandchildren and her love of all Entonces yo me decidí a atender And then the love that I have children to create a playful, sensory el jardín sembrando lo básico para for sowing and to see the environment, including raspberry hacer sofrito y sembrar otras plantas produce of what one sowed. For that reason the project really and blueberry bushes, and a walking que me gustaban... Entonces yo iba drew my attention, because spiral. Burgos comments, “This mayormente a regar en las tardes when you know you’re doing project was creating something y venían los padres a buscar a los things with love, everything without words, something that niños de la escuela. Ellos me veían flowers.” speaks to all people. Gardening is a y me preguntaban. ‘Mire, para --- language of its own, and we all see it qué esta planta y para qué sirve?’ “We called people to ask if they differently, experience it differently. Y yo les explicaba y daba recetas wanted to plant certain things, Some never experienced a garden at para preparar ciertas comidas. Por but many knew nothing about all. I wanted to take our project and ejemplo con la albahaca, que abunda that… So I decided to serve in show the neighborhood that there mucho en el patio, se puede preparar the garden planting the basic can be beauty, healing and substance pesto. Yo le decía de cada planta ingredients of sofrito... [Later] I used to go to water mostly in even in the darkest places. That there que tenía su uso y yo quedé muy the afternoons, when parents is hope for neighborhoods that need satisfecha porque muchos de estos were coming to pick up their the beauty, healing and unity that a padres son jóvenes y no sabían de children from school. They garden can bring to all walks of life.” para qué servían estas plantas… Le would see me and ask, “What Ockovic describes her experience of decía yo, cada cosa que yo tenía de is this plant for? And this one?” Uprooted/reRooted in these words: mi conocimiento.” (see sidebar for and I would give them recipes translation) for what to make with basil, “... algo lleno de amor, porque al which was very abundant on principio esto era como un desierto Eliciting and centering marginalized the patio. Recipes like how to cementerio… Y pues el amor que bodies of knowledge like Agnes’s make fish. I would tell them yo le tengo a la siembra y al ver la herbalism and gardening, or like the the uses of each plant and I was astonished because many producción de lo que uno siembra. disciplines of sketching and writing of those parents excused Por eso me llamó muchísimo la outside of academic settings, is a themselves, they were young atención, porque cuando sabe critical element of creating truly and didn’t know the uses of que hace las cosas con amor, todo horizontal collaboration. the plants… Stomach aches, florece.” (see sidebar for translation) nausea, I know and I told them, everything I had in my She speaks with pride of the praise traditional wisdom.” offered by neighbors and visitors. The colorful beauty of the prize-winning gardens tended by volunteers have added so much to the school and the neighborhood. She describes the Red Garden as a site of cultural transmission and preservation:

44 45 Receta Limón para transformación, a rebirth. Ajo for accent, onion for emoción, pimiento para color y intensidad. Albahaca brings back exquisite dishes and long lost amistades and makes a medicinal tea for colds and headaches. Recao closes cycles, parsley braces, salt balances. Rice signifies life, the purity of each one of us, unidos al raíz.

Cilantro! Beautiful plant! At my touch, sus ramitas delicadas Left: sueltan esa deliciosa aroma that penetrates memorias de mi isla Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program the palm tree that grew on the patio unnoticed under moon and sun. / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Her large body rooted, sole guardian of the afternoon, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community members, Cramp she dreamt alone, free in the wind, Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael huntress of the clouds, always solitary and cool. Reali. Tamarindo, tu dulce paladar! Top Right: En lo profundo de mi caldero all the ingredients wait for me Drawing workshop in Cramp’s Art Room. Pictured (L to R): Kathy to drop my yellowed leaves, close another cycle. Garcia-Soler, Katty Soler-prado, Mildred Gonzalez, Rosalene Isaac, Leidy Burgos, Agnes Ockovic, Delfina Jimenez, Mileika Flores Medina, and Mayra Rivera. Photo by Marion Wilson.

Bottom right: Drawing workshop in Cramp’s Art Room. Pictured Mildred Gonzalez and Jamie Dixon. Photo by Marion Wilson.

Delfina Jimenez watering the north courtyard. Photo by Agnes Ockovic.

47

North Courtyard Design Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson. Top Right: North courtyard transformation, June 2017. Photo by Marion Wilson.

Middle and Bottom Right: Uprooted/reRooted in process, October 10, 2017. Photos by Steve Weinik.

51 Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion 52 Wilson, Cramp students & community members, Cramp Elementary 53 School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Steve Weinik. Pictured (L to R): William Reed, Jane Golden, Marion Wilson, Shari Hersh, Agnes Ockovic, Luz Ruiz, Lucy Velez, Doris Salcedo, Leidy Burgos.

54 55 commonly-ascribed role of the artist Charito Morales of the Providence goal to build multiple skills sets and 3. Horizontal as genius. She is deeply interested Center observed, “The mural is capacities within participants and in exploring the conditions that so contextual and reflective of the their community. Relinquishing allow for horizontal collaboration community. Everyone identifies with individual authorship calls into Collaboration to take place so that communities it. It gives the youth and community doubt the ability to claim a personal have agency in designing their a voice. …The project broke the body of work. All team members and Making own projects in partnership with status quo. People no longer accept were well-versed in social practice professional artists and designers, that it’s normal to live in a litter- and deeply concerned with issues and teams of Restored Spaces ridden neighborhood and stop living of social and environmental justice. Together practitioners. so hopeless. …We need to have The project challenged all team colors, we need to have flavors.” members to evaluate their thoughts Horizontal collaboration requires and feelings about creating a fully Shari Hersh, Director of Restored technical knowledge, fortitude, and Uprooted/reRooted explored many horizontal collaborative project in Spaces Initiative, introduced experience, and signals to the whole preconceptions about creative which no one voice predominated or horizontal collaboration to cadre of participants that their voices control and authorship deeply rooted claimed authorship. Uprooted/reRooted in reaction to and perspectives have equal weight in Western culture. The project was the ways in which most public art and equal power. Hersh honors and profoundly collaborative, with ideas In its second year, Uprooted/ projects are structured, upending treasures the practitioners she has generated, evaluated, and brought reRooted continued to facilitate systems of status and subverting found who possess these capacities, to fruition by the group as a whole, community leadership of design Top Left: power hierarchies to generate equity which are essential to undertaking not by a single individual. The work and production processes and of Herbarium drawings in Room 118. and make space for the intelligence horizontal collaboration. Without ethic that prioritizes efficiency and shared ownership of the garden by Bottom Right: and creativity of community these, she states, “The obstacles expediency through solo agency was the community and school. At an Uprooted/reRooted in process members. She organizes projects cannot be surmounted.” questioned in the light of the project assessment at the end of the Fall April 21, 2018. that deconstruct dominant forms of artistic practice, using the Ladder of Forms of “participatory art” can have Citizen Participation developed by an ameliorative approach to social Sherrie R. Arnstein9 to critique the problems that fail to engage their insufficient ways that participants are structural causes. Restored Spaces included in many public art projects. continues to explore how to position Hersh emphasizes the importance of projects to create systemic change making these distinctions about the as well as local transformation, kinds and degrees of participation. seeking a level of possibility within The projects she sponsors through the process that leads to collective the Restored Spaces Initiative action. CDLs have contributed achieve the Partnership level of aesthetically and materially to the Citizen Control in Arnstein’s schema, complete transformation of all in which participants do not merely four external facades of the school provide content suggestions, or building with a botanical mural. They feedback on artists’ drafts, but have co-led the design and fabrication decisive creative control through processes for the entirety of their all phases of a project. The equity outdoor courtyard transformation: aspect of the project design included gardens, landscaping, and art. revising the structure of decision- Their central role in conceiving making, and pushing against the and developing the project in challenges of paying participants collaboration with Wilson and Jones for their expertise. Hersh possesses is one of the most salient features The diagram is based on the original 1969 a deep motivation to change the of Uprooted/reRooted, essential to illustration of Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation as it appeared in the Journal of the status quo, using a model that is creating horizontal collaborations American Planning Association. anti-capitalist and atypical of the and to achieving collective authorship, two of the project’s priorities.

9 Originally published as Arnstein, Sherry R. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, 56 July 1969, pp. 216-224. 57 semester, CDLs and project staff served as source material for a determined that Uprooted/reRooted collaborative poem, Receta, included needed one dedicated space in in the mural overlooking the which to complete the mural panels Culture Kitchen garden. The themes (painted in sections on parachute of uprooting and rerooting are material.) Hersh suggested working emotionally palpable in the imagery with Charito Morales and her youth of lost landscapes and beloved program at Providence Center, recipes embodied in participants’ because of shared values and goals writing. relating to interrupting oppressive hierarchies, and because of how Partnering with Providence Center committed the teens were at the first cultivated the relationships and paint day. The team settled on the community investment which idea of one marathon, round-the- resulted in an extremely inclusive clock week of painting mural panels creative process, generating themes at Providence Center. A partnership and artwork that resonated with invitation was extended to Morales the community. The well-attended and Providence Center to continue poetry workshops resulted in to build the relevance of the project a second wave of CDLs being in the wider community, and to hired and trained to complete the strengthen relationships across painting of the murals that were organizations. applied to the Cramp facade. Final painting sessions took place over Poetry took on a leading role in the spring and summer of 2018, the second phase of the project, once school was released and the as poet laureate of Philadelphia, Cramp art classroom was available Top Left: Raquel Salas Rivera, led workshops for this purpose. This team of CDLs Lucy Velez painting a section of the mural in exploring the theme of “roots” with comprised Jamie Dixon, Mileika Room 110. Photo by Marion Wilson. both CDLs at Cramp and teens at Flores Medina, Kathy Garcia-Soler, Bottom Left: Providence center. Hersh notes, Mildred Gonzalez, Rosalene Isaac, Uprooted/reRooted in process, April 21, 2018. “We prioritized poetry as a way into Delfina Jimenez, Mayra Rivera, Katty Photo by Steve Weinik. the roots theme and to expand the Soler-Prado, annd Lucy Velez as well Bottom Right: field of engaged parents and staff, to as original members Leidy Burgos, North courtyard transformation day, October 10, 2017. Photo by Steve Weinik. further underscore the community’s Lillian Fontanez, and Agnes Ockovic. vision of itself.” The adults’ poems

58 59 I’ve been doing murals with Mural Arts for 20 years. I would say this project had the deepest and most sustained social engagement connection with community, building relationships, making friends with people, being the most embraced I have felt by a community.”

Eurhi Jones

Uprooted/reRooted in process 60 April 21, 2018. 61 Photo by Steve Weinik. Uprooted/reRooted in process, June 21, 2019. 62 Photo by Steve Weinik. 63 Community Garden, Summary of Project Cellular View of Plants W Tioga Street Facade

Sensory Garden - Empathy Seeds and Sprouts N Mascher Street Facade

Healing Garden & Teaching Circle - Strife Roots and Flowers W Ontario Street Facade

Culture Kitchen - Food, Water, Life Fruits and Vegetables N Howard Street Facade

64 65 Yo encontré que este proyecto que hicimos juntos ha unido la comunidad mas. Para mi significa la habilidad de hacer nuevas amistades e incluso los niños que participaron pueden mirar hacia el futuro y encontrar algo positivo. Que en la union Community design team in open studio in Room 118. Translation of quote: esta la fuerza y puedes hacer muchas cosas “I see that this project that we all did together has brought the community closer together. For me it buenas donde hay union y comprensión.” meant the ability to make new friends and even the children who participated in the project can look to the future and find something positive. There is strength in unity and you can do many good things when there is unity and understanding.” Lillian Fontanez 66 Lillian Fontanez 67 Planting the Spiral in the north 68 courtyard, April 21, 2018. Photo 69 by Steve Weinik. En el año 2017 me encontré en la escuela Cramp una reunión. Y cual seria mi razón para estar ahi. La razón era poner color y verdor a un lugar que estaba sombrio. Y si me dedique ya que era para darle alergia. Pintamos, plantamos, se nos lleno

de alegria nuestros corazones y los de los Eating together. Pictured (L to R): Agnes Ockovic, Leidy and Joseph Burgos, Shari Hersh, Lucy Velez, demás. Hice mis amistades que las llevo en Maria Roman, Michael Reali, Julius Ferraro. Photo by mi corazón porque ellos no se imaginan lo Marion Wilson. grandes que son para mi. Los guardaré en Translation of quote: “In 2017, I came across a meeting at Cramp School. mi mente por siempre hasta que muera. Son That meeting became the reason for becoming part of the project. The reason was to add color parte de mi razón de la vida.” and greenery to a place that was gloomy. And so I dedicated myself to giving the space some joy. We painted, we planted, and that filled my heart and those of others with a lot of joy. I made great friends that I carry in my heart and I will keep them in my mind forever. They are part of my reason for life.” Agnes Ockovic 70 Agnes Ockovic 71 Shared authorship and horizontal collaboration yielded artworks of communal resonance. Ockovic observes, “Mucha gente puso su granito de arena para que el proyecto se realizara colectivamente y de una mejor manera.” (“Many people added their grain of sand so that the project could be actualized collectively and in a better way.”) Fontanez reflects, “Yo encontré que este proyecto que hicimos juntos ha unido la comunidad mas. Para mi significa la habilidad de hacer nuevas amistades e incluso los niños que participaron pueden mirar hacia el futuro y encontrar algo positivo. Que en la union esta la fuerza y puedes hacer muchas cosas buenas donde hay unión y comprensión.” (“I found that this project which we made together has united the community more. For me, it means the ability to Uprooted/reRooted provided the opportunity Teach-ins, discussions, and partnerships make new friendships, and includes the children to test the strategies contributing to horizontal focused on environmental and social justice can who participated who can look toward the future collaboration and shared authorship. The project contextualize and situate the project, expand the and find something positive. That in unity is power achieved a surprising degree of success and community’s awareness of and alignment with the and you can do many things well where there is ensured authentic community ownership moving project’s intent and structure, and scaffold future unity and understanding.”) forward, but it was also a challenging journey with change efforts. so many lessons learned: The artistic practice of using sketchbooks was Expand regular, larger-scale opportunities for surprisingly effective and underscored the Prioritize friendship and neighboring as reflection before, during, and after the project, importance of keeping a meticulous visual record infrastructures of care. Eurhi Jones and Marion that include awareness of the project’s structure as throughout the project. Wilson agreed that working as a community and well as its artistic process. Integrate evaluation and being intentional about care and reciprocity was shared meaning-making into the entire arc of the Use care to describe the community in its rich an integral component to ensuring mutual and project. Continuous outreach must be conducted to actuality of social networks and resilient survival collective growth. Furthermore, participants said bring together constant, ongoing opportunities for strategies, rather than reenact media portrayals that meeting regularly and intentionally made this reflection. focusing only on the lacks and challenges growth possible. experienced by the community. Principal Deanda Holding a formal dedication event at the conclusion Logan states, “It’s an extraordinary community Horizontal collaboration resulting in shared of the project is an essential moment of celebration filled with wonderful people.” authorship was an outcome acknowledged by all in a project. Speakers often share stories of participants. It constitutes a foundational value meanings in a culmination event. Opening the Develop a large enough collaborative team to share for Restored Spaces that will be pursued in future moment up after the formal speakers, in more the work of initiating and maintaining connections projects. It remains an ongoing challenge and an of the style of a Town Hall Meeting as described and ongoing upkeep of community gardens so aspiration in that it contradicts the long-standing by Ernesto Pujol, generates a chance to create that no one member of the team carries too much hierarchies upon which our class society is memories of the project that encode meaning.10 weight. structured. Trust the talent and expertise in the room. Orient Creating a shared knowledge base, and centering projects to reflect the assets of local participants traditional and informal knowledge, proved highly and bring forth treasures and knowledge/ successful in creating desired outcomes. Expanding conocimientos. For example, the project benefited the shared knowledge base to include collective greatly from Agnes’s hidden talents and Leidy’s Top Left: Mural detail, plant cells. Uprooted/reRooted definitions of horizontal collaborative practices ability to talk about the “hidden” issue of domestic © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / and shared authorship can help sustain these violence. Their capacity inspired the other team Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, shared values and deepen the prioritization of these Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp students members; these gifts arose due to the risk-taking & community members, Cramp Elementary concepts and processes by the group. strategy of making space for talents to emerge. School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael Reali.

Right: Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, 72 10 Tavani, David. “Questions of Practice: Ernesto Pujol on Reciprocal 73 Relationships with Communities.” The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, 2017, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community https://vimeo.com/239999844. members, Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael Reali. Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community members, Cramp 74 Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. 75 Photos by Michael Reali. While COVID-19 has interrupted the flow that it can get things done as a result of team of Uprooted/reRooted, CDL Agnes Ockovic effort. And about the stability of the school. has been caring for the gardens, assisted by This project was a game changer — now people Interpret Green, Philadelphia Orchard Project, have a positive perception of the school.” and Mural Arts Philadelphia. It is an important A project can help transform community milestone in the community’s ownership of perception of a school or institution. The entire the space and its maintenance. The garden is community benefits on an emotional level blooming and full of life; Agnes shared pictures as feelings of belonging and pride replace of the fruiting figs, growing tomatoes, zucchinis, alienation. Alyssa Schimmel of the Philadelphia and herbs. The friendships between CDLs Orchard Project says, “It’s been encouraging are also ongoing, as they keep tabs on each to see how Cramp’s neighbors and families other’s health and circumstances. Regardless have been connecting with the orchards and of challenges, the project has succeeded in its gardens. Children excitedly run after butterflies goals, and participants are enthusiastic about in the gardens, sample fresh raspberries from its continuation. the vine, and flowers passed through the fence- line helped to comfort neighbors experiencing Cramp Elementary Principal Deanda Logan grief. While we’re out tending the gardens, observes, “The project is a testament to we frequently hear neighbors expressing the strength and the wonderfulness of the their thanks for supporting the school’s green Top Center: community that oftentimes is not shown in a spaces.” Mural detail, figs. Uprooted/reRooted © City positive light. It says a lot about the school and of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community members, Cramp Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. Photo by Michael Reali.

Right: Maintaining the north courtyard, July 20, 2020. Photos by Agnes Ockovic.

CDL Agnes Ockovic, July 20, 2020. Photo by 76 Craig Johnson. 77 We are encouraged by the continued engagement of the community even under these adverse, unplanned conditions. Restored Spaces will continue to support organizing at the site in spring 2020 using gameplay to establish criteria for a Request For Proposals modeled on the Neighborhood Yes Fund, a community-directed granting program at Bartram’s Garden. The Yes Fund is designed to transfer capacity through dollars and technical support for small community projects and programs. Mini-grants made by Mural Arts, similar to Yes Fund grants, would allow participants, neighbors, and staff to further animate the space — from future seasons of Ambiente Ecologica, to cooking or herbalism workshops. These grants would further support the capacity of the Cramp team to take on full ownership of the space and direct their collective energies towards maintaining and activating the space according to their priorities and talents. Top Right: Herbarium drawing “Clover leaves” with Dr. Ruiz’s third-grade class.

Bottom Right: From the Migration Series, a drawing of a coconut tree by a third-grade student.

Uprooted/reRooted © City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Leidy Burgos, Lillian Fontanez, Eurhi Jones, Agnes Ockovic, Marion Wilson, Cramp students & community members, Cramp 78 Elementary School, 3449 North Mascher Street. 79 Photo by Michael Reali. Uprooted/reRooted dedication at Cramp Elementary School, October 23, 2019. 80 Photo by Michael Reali. 81 Pictured (L to R): Joseph and Leidy Burgos and Principal Deanda receiving the 2018 Garden of Distinction award at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

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