Summer Leadership Institute (SLI)
Groundswell’s flagship Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) is a summer job-training program for upwards of 100 youth. Seven teams of youth spend seven weeks working with artists and community-based organizations, learning job skills and creating public art for their neighborhoods.
Applications for our 2012 Summer Leadership Institute are now closed.
2012's Summer Leadership Institute projects include:
Voices Her’d
Groundswell’s Voices Her’d Visionaries team of exceptional young women will design and fabricate a monumental mural that explores the theme “Women as International Community” on the side of the Gowanus Arts Building, rehearsal, teaching, and performance home of Spoke the Hub Dancing since 1985.
Community Partner: Douglass Street Associates
Location: 185 Flatbush Avenue Extension, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Lead Artist: Nicole Schulman
Assistant Artist: Leola Bermanzohn
Youth Artists: TBD
Public Design Sharing: Rescheduled TBD.
Community Painting Day: August 8th, 9am - 4pm at wall location.
Dedication: August 31st, 5pm at wall location.
Making His’tory
In partnership with the Brownsville Community Justice Center, a team made up exclusively of young men will spend the summer creating its vision of role models and the male identity. The mural will be located at the Student Farm Project Garden.
Community Partners: Center for Court Innovation, Student Farm Project
Location: 512 Rockaway Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11212
Lead Artist: Chris Soria
Assistant Artist: Jules Joseph
Youth Artists: TBD
Public Design Sharing: July 24th, 4:30pm at wall location.
Community Painting Day: August 8th, 9am - 4pm at wall location.
Dedication: August 30th, 11am at wall location.
StreetWise: Hunts Point
Through a unique partnership between Groundswell, the NYC Department of Transportation, and Majora Carter Group, a team of young artists from the South Bronx will create a mural at the entrance to Hunts Point Riverside Park that illustrates and finds solutions for local residents’ transportation and related environmental concerns. This project is made possible thanks to a significant investment by the Rockefeller Foundation and its Cultural Innovation Fund and is the second in a series of five Hunts Point projects.
Community Partners: NYC DOT, Majora Carter Group
Location: Rocking The Boat, 812 Edgewater Road, Bronx, NY 10474
Lead Artist: Adam Kidder
Assistant Artist: Jazmine Hayes
Youth Artists: TBD
Public Design Sharing: July 25th, 2pm, at wall location.
Community Painting Day: August 1st, 9am - 4pm at wall location.
Dedication: August 30th, 2pm at wall location.
Broadway Junction
In partnership with the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, the NYC Parks Department, and Aspirations Diploma Plus High School, young people from East New York will develop a mural for the neglected Broadway Junction subway station in East New York, as part of the City’s larger plan to revitalize and empower the East New York community through public art. The mural will be inspired by the theme “I Love East New York,” and its development will be supported by local cultural organization ARTs East New York.
Community Partners: Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, NYC Parks Department, Aspiration Diploma Plus High School, ARTs East New York
Location: Van Sinderen Avenue and Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11233
Co-Lead Artist: Frank Parga
Co-Lead Artist: Esteban del Valle
Youth Artists: TBD
Public Design Sharing: July 24th, 2pm - 3pm at wall location.
Community Painting Day: Rescheduled TBD.
Dedication: August 30th, 11:00am at wall location.
Livable Streets Sunset Park
As Sunset Park prepares to implement a series of transformative community-led initiatives, Groundswell youth will partner with the NYC Department of Transportation and environmental justice leader UPROSE to create a mural celebrating livable streets
Community Partners: NYC DOT, UPROSE
Location: C-Town, 760 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11232
Lead Artist: Crystal Bruno
Assistant Artist: Angel Garcia
Youth Artists: TBD
Public Design Sharing and Wall Priming Event: July 24th, 11am - 2pm at UPROSE 166A 22nd St, Brooklyn, NY 11232.
Community Painting Day: August 2nd, 9am - 4pm at wall location.
Dedication: August 30th, 11am at wall location.
Brooklyn Navy Yard
Groundswell youth will partner with the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation to develop the second of two murals in collaboration with the Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at Building 92 that showcase the history of this modern industrial park and engage passers by in the thriving activity taking place today.
Community Partners: Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation in collaboration with
Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at Building 92
Location: Navy Street and Sand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Lead Artist: Tanya Linn Albrigten-Frable
Assistant Artist: Joel Bergner
Youth Artists: TBD
Public Design Sharing:July 24th, 11am at wall location.
Community Painting Day: August 8th, 9am - 4pm at wall location.
Dedication: August 29th, 3pm at wall location.
Livable Streets Corona
Groundswell youth muralists will work with the NYC Department of Transportation’s Office of Safety Education and the High School for Arts and Business to create a mural designed to promote traffic safety at the location of a dangerous intersection in Corona.
Community Partners: NYC DOT, High School for Arts and Business
Location: High School for Arts and Business, 105-25 Horace Harding Expressway North, Queens, NY 11368
Lead Artist: Yana Dimitrova
Assistant Artist: Olivia Fu
Youth Artists: TBD
Public Design Sharing and Wall Priming Event: July 24th, 11am - 2pm at wall location.
Community Painting Day: August 1st, 9am - 4pm at wall location.
Dedication: August 31st, 11am at wall location.
Major financial support for Groundswell's 2012 Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) is contributed by Altman Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Brooklyn Community Foundation, Catalog for Giving, Charles Lawrence Keith and Clara Miller Foundation, David Rockefeller Fund, Edelman Community Investment, EILEEN FISHER, Ethel and W. George Kennedy Family Foundation, Irene B. Wolt Lifetime Trust, Lambent Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and its Cultural Innovation Fund, Travelers Foundation, Variety The Children’s Charity, and Winifred Johnson Clive Foundation, in addition to numerous individuals.
SLI is made possible in part by public funds administered by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Youth and Community Development Summer Youth Employment Program, New York City Department of Education, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Groundswell is grateful to the Office of the Mayor of New York City; the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President; and New York City Council Members Sara M. Gonzalez, Brad Lander, Stephen Levin.