[2001-1996 Projects]

* Sunset Park Unity Mural

* Groundswell Summer...

* Scene Through a Fence

* Peace is Not A Dream...

* We are Here to...

* Paradise Lost and...

* Everyone Holds a World...

* How Our People Left...

Paradise: Lost and Resurrected

PARADISE: LOST AND RESURRECTED

Groundswell Community Mural Project ©
www.groundswellmural.org

Acrylic on Wall
13 x 36 Ft
1998

Artists: Amy Sananman, Director Jennifer Laden, Volunteers

Location: Hoyt & Baltic St., Brooklyn NY, Summer 1998

A Collaboration between the Heyward Family, Gowanus Community and Groundswell Community Mural Project

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

In the spring of 1998, friends and relatives of Nicholas Naquan Heyward, Jr. met each week to work through their loss. In 1994, at age 13, Nicholas was shot and killed while playing with some friends in his building in the Gowanus Houses in Boerum Hill Brooklyn. Police mistook his water gun for the real thing. Five years later, his parents, Nicholas Sr. and Angela and brother Quentin, connected with Groundswell to give youth in Gowanus an opportunity to use their creativity to memorialize Nicholas.

The mural's design is based on collages, poetry, drawings and discussions generated in brainstorming sessions with Groundswell founder and Lead Artist Amy Sananman and Nicholas' family and friends. The family and youth participants raised and explored themes of memory and loss, vitality and afterlife, fear and acceptance. The central image of Nicholas is surrounded by symbols of these themes. On his left is the world his friends, cousins and brother shared with him: basketball, hide and seek: the paradise of innocence, of children, of play. In contrast to this daylight and vitality, on his right, set against the darkness of night, we see images of the lonely and individual process of coming to terms with loss and lost innocence. Nicholas' brother sits alone and contemplates Nicholas' journey, represented by a lone figure running into the light through the forest. We also see the sheer pain of loss: Nicholas' mother recounts how his beloved dog Buddha sat with Nicholas' laundry bag and howled out the window for days following his death. However, the group felt that these images also contain serenity, with the knowledge of the golden stairs that lead to a more peaceful place. The central image of Nicholas in robes connotes both his junior high graduation and his induction into the world of angels. The vision of his afterlife is one surrounded by nature, with doves of peace providing his wings: a paradise resurrected. This is a new paradise that his family and friends used as inspiration in their work on the mural as well as inspiration in their individual "tireless efforts . to be co-workers with God."

"Actually, time itself is neutral, it can be used destructively or constructively. Progress comes through the tireless efforts of people willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation."

-Dr. Martin Luther King

Thanks to Toys R Us Children's Foundation and Frank Kazeroid Realty for funding, the Cuyler Warren Methodist Church for space, Ms Celestine for the wall, Miguel at the laundromat and the repair shop next door for letting us store our supplies, Mr. Aziz for the scaffolding, Councilman Angel Rodriguez, Community Board Leader Craig Hammerman, South Brooklyn Local Development Corporation. The artist would like to dedicate this mural to the memory of her childhood friend, Lisa Monteleone.