15. ArtBridge Murals
This month marks the completion of fifty art installations that are part of the public art exhibition City Artists Corps: Bridging the Divide. Presented by ArtBridge, in partnership with the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) and the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the year-long project spans all five boroughs and highlights the stories, cultures, talents, and histories of New York City’s 400,000 public housing residents.
The first of the installations to be complete can be found at Manhattan’s Baruch Houses, while the final installations just went on view at the Taft Houses in Harlem. The art you’ll see was created by fifty different local artists who answered a city-wide call and were then evaluated by more than a dozen nonprofit organizations. The public murals created by the selected artists span nearly two miles of construction fencing and sidewalk sheds that surround sixteen individual NYCHA sites. Their designs are truly reflective of the communities in which they appear and are the result of hundreds of workshops, community events, and close collaboration with NYCHA residents. Most of the installations will remain on display through August 2023. Participating NYCHA developments include Baruch, Polo Grounds, Taft, and Lillian Wald in Manhattan; Brownsville, Howard, Ingersoll, Red Hook East, and Red Hook West in Brooklyn; Adams and Mitchel in the Bronx; Astoria, Pomonok, and Woodside in Queens; South Beach and Todt Hill on Staten Island.
