CULTURE MAKING WITH NYC

2022 Report for NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Culture Making 2022

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Thank you, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, for investing in Thrive Collective’s mission to eradicate artless education since 2016. In FY22, our students and artists completed:

  • 93 school and community murals at sixty locations in all five boroughs;
  • 18 original songs and music videos;
  • Two film festivals featuring ten student videos;
  • Our 300th mural since 2013;
  • Our 25,000th student and 200th school served since 2011.

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

CDF

Cultural Development Fund

Our third year grant from the Cultural Development Fund, helped us complete eighty-one murals between July 2021 and June 2020 despite Covid quarantines and closures. Below are some of the video highlights from our public art during that period. Enjoy our full murals portfolio here.

PS 9X: Extreme Mural Makeover

PS 250K: Extreme Mural Makeover

PS250K Principal Young Interviews Students

News 12: Brooklyn School Unveils Student Mural

NYU Voices: OP Ambassador Program x Thrive Collective

PIX11: NYC To Host World Finals of Break Dancing

NY1: Meisha Porter Reflects on Time as School Chancellor

PIX11: Queens Homecoming Concert rocks Forest Hills Stadium

PIX11: Brooklyn students celebrate their community and diversity with large mural

CBS2: Students Team Up With Local Artists in Bronx

WFAA 8 Dallas: Still We Rise

NYC Summer Rising Recap Features 3 Thrive Murals

Catalyst

Art a Catalyst for Change

Thrive Collective’s Art a Catalyst for Change grant allowed us to serve students at IS 117 and PS/MS 279 in the Bronx, and PS/MS 42Q and PS/MS 183Q in Queens, along with all six participating Queens schools via the borough-wide culminating event.

While the essential School Murals program remains consistent across various initiatives, different DCLA initiatives explore specific themes and focuses. Catalyst projects invite students to explore topics that inspire and equip students for gun-free living.

Special thanks to NYC Council Members Fernando Cabrera and Donovan Richards for your Catalyst support again this year, along with the Queens Delegation for selecting us to produce the borough’s culminating event.

HeART Beat Returns to Roy Wilkins Park

Art a Catalyst for Change: Queens Culminating Event 2022

Enjoy the HeART Beat 2022 photo diary and more.

Immigrants

Cultural Immigrants Initiative

Thrive Collective’s CII grant allowed us to serve students at The Young Women’s Leadership School in the Bronx and PS 249 and IS 30 in Brooklyn.

While the essential School Murals program remains consistent across various initiatives, different DCLA initiatives explore specific themes and focuses. CII projects celebrate the immigrant cultural diversity of particular neighborhoods and school communities while exploring various thematic topics. This year’s topics included celebration traditions, parade customs, and responding to COVID.

Special thanks to NYC Council Members Fernando Cabrera, Justin Brannan, and Matthieu Eugene for your consistent CII support again this year.

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CASA

Cultural After School Adventures

Thrive Collective’s CASA grant allowed us to serve students at PS/MS 34 in Manhattan, and PS/MS 42 and Queens Preparatory Academy in Queens.

At Queens Prep, we provided project based School Murals workshops for an entire semester. For the first time since COVID, classes were held entirely in person in the spring, and produced large-scale, public art mural for permanent installation at prominent lobby location.

At PS/MS 42, Thrive provided a hybrid music and media, hip hop program called R.H.Y.M.E. (Rhymes Help Young Minds Excel). Students wrote, performed, and recorded “Climb,” an original song about perseverance, endurance and working hard to achieve their goals. Students also designed album cover art, filmed a music video, and distributed the video on Youtube and the music on Bandcamp.

At PS/MS 34, Thrive provided a collaborative Media After-School program that resulted in six student films, screened for the school and shared on Youtube.

Special thanks to NYC Council Members Carlina Rivera and Selvena Brooks-Powers for your CASA support again this year.

``Climb`` Music Video by PS/MS 42

PS/MS 34 Short Films

PS/MS 34 Art Documentary

SU-CASA

SU-CASA: Creative Aging

Thrive Collective’s SU-CASA grant allowed us to serve 30 seniors at the Rain Tollentine Senior Center in the Bronx. We provided concepting and design sessions with the seniors participating at the center.

The Seniors chose a theme and helped interpret it visually through guided, group conversations, drawing sessions, and various prompts. Our teaching artists curated the theme ideas and created a cohesive mural design the seniors approved. From there, Thrive transferred the image and set up open sessions for seniors to paint alongside their families. The project concluded with a mural installation and ribbon cutting celebration for the work the seniors and their families helped create.

Special thanks to NYC Council Members Fernando Cabrera and Pierina Sanchez for your SU-CASA support this year.

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

  • Project based Murals workshops for up to an entire semester. Classes were generally held in person, but were still available in a hybrid format when COVID protocols required that shift.
  • Produced large-scale, public art murals for permanent installation at prominent locations within various school buildings and community walls.
  • All classes and productions explored a common theme within a given school or community partner requiring participants 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, participants 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 shutdowns due to periodic Covid cases.

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