yOUR story: history, resilience, and home

yOUR story: history, resilience, and home was a one-week, socially engaged public art pilot project to host public discourse in sites of historical resilience in order to position youth as experts, contextualize art and conversation within public space and communities, and reclaim stories of the turbulent struggle for equality.

yOUR story was developed collaboratively by lead artists Jared Wood and Michael O’Bryan and project manager Shari Hersh.

In June 2016, Mural Arts staged a week-long project at the Village for Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia, a site of historical resilience for the African American community. A group of youth collaborating with artists Jared Wood and Michael O’Bryan participated in an intensive, week-long public dialogue and public art process. Through a series of workshops, games, and dialogues, they planned and produced a public event at the Village.

Staging the dialogue at a site of historical resilience within Philadelphia, this project aimed to contextualize the conversation in the “history of resilience” both in the use of public space and in the attributes of individuals and communities. This pilot tested a model for a larger project aiming to reknit social fabric among disparate stakeholders and develop communal, healing narratives in relation to youth housing insecurity and homelessness.