Thank you, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, for consistently investing in Thrive Collective’s expansion as an arts education provider for students and schools since 2016. (Drone video footage by @just_a_spectator.)

This past year nurtured our deepening relationship through four NYC initiatives: the Cultural Development Fund (“CDF”), Art a Catalyst for Change (“Catalyst”), Cultural Immigrants Initiative (“Immigrants”), and Cultural After School Adventures (“CASA”). Enjoy the respective initiative portfolios in the tabs below, and a fuller description of program elements further down.

The essential School Murals program remains consistent across the various initiatives, with different initiatives requiring specific thematic focuses. Core program elements include:

• Project based School Murals workshops for up to an entire semester. Classes were held in a hybrid program of remote learning and in person instruction, with mural production happening in person once reliable school openings were secured in the spring.
• Produced large-scale, public art murals for permanent installation at prominent locations within all school buildings, along with a printed graphic novel at IS 117.
• All classes and productions explored a common theme within a given school requiring participating students to develop a shared vision and bring that vision to life collaboratively with others.

Murals classes include:

• Structured, age-appropriate, multidisciplinary arts education and social development programming.
• Age-appropriate instruction that developed mural and life skills including but not limited to design, image transfer, color mixing, painting, collaboration and leadership.
• Over the course of the semester, students worked as teams to co-create a large-scale painting for permanent installation at the school.
• Students worked collaboratively during this process in a socially distant manner to ensure the safety of all students, staff, and Thrive Art instructors. We remained flexible until the end of the project in case of any potential school shutdowns due to Covid cases on campus.