Bed-Stuy Walls: Cousins

In October of 2022, Bedford-Stuyvesant held its first-ever mural festival. Entitled “BedStuy Walls,” the festival invited artists to spray a long stretch of wall on Lexington Avenue belonging to a warehouse.

Veteran Thrive teaching artist and art director Michela Muserra founded Bed-Stuy Walls alongside art curator Frankie Velez. Wanting to include Thrive in the festival, Michela got in touch with Rev. Dr. Robert Waterman, the pastor of Antioch Baptist Church. Rev. Dr. Waterman agreed to let Thrive artists paint a large wall which belongs to the church and sits adjacent to the stretch of wall that would be sprayed for the Bed-Stuy Walls festival. To learn more about our collaboration with Rev. Dr. Waterman for this mural series, read our blog post on Bed-Stuy Walls.

Thrive artists Marissa Molina, Andrea Amanda, Joshua Gabriel, Ashley Crawford, and Nico Collazo painted five murals revolving around the themes of unity and family reunion. The mural series is entitled “Cousins.”

Check out the picture gallery below to see how our artists transformed a blank brick wall into a series of colorful murals.