public art/public housing:

Naranja Public Housing Art Project, a collaborative effort between the Miami-Dade Housing Agency and Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, Miami, Florida, August 1997.

What problems does your innovative program address?

The mural project serves to help residents work together to regain control of communities afflicted by the scourge of drugs and violence. The project has two important features: The process and the product. The process is the coming together of diverse individuals to develop a vision and work collectively to achieve a common goal. The merit of this educational process is that everyone is valued for their contribution (diversity is rewarded) and success is based on the ability of the participants to support one another in reaching their goal. This process also leaves a product--the mural-- that serves as a conspicuous reminder that by working jointly the community can meet its challenges. The mural then does more than instill community pride. The mural becomes the first in a series of tangible steps residents, students, and other community members take in jointly addressing their community’s problem. By creating non-stigmatizing and non-threatening opportunities for interaction, this method creates real community advocacy by developing a cadre of self-motivated indigenous leaders intimately familiar with a wide range of issues that affect community. This process validates and supports community members-- the ones who are both most affected by and best situated to solve a problem, whatever it may be.

Who are the current and potential beneficiaris of your program?

"Ms. J" walked out of her public housing unit with a can of left-over black paint and showed it to the dignitaries assembled, "this is my wall and I'm taking care of it." Unlike other efforts which are thoroughly planned and created for those in disadvantaged communities, this particpant-driven project yielded a product that did not evaporate after the ribbons were cut and the T.V. camera lights faded. Because, the community created the mural, those in community own it, promote it and protect it. Months after its completion, no one has dared deface the mural. Years after its creation, participants will show their younger siblings the figure they traced and painted on the wall. Efforts like this lead to the creation of pro-social bonds that create cultural context, instill civic pride and teach individuals to connect with their communities. Such community bonding is important in public housing developments, where residents are more marginalized than those in homeowner and mixed income neighborhoods are. This is particularly true for the current Naranja public housing residents, who moved in en masse from across the County after Hurricane Andrew displaced the previous tenants from what was then already an isolated community. Through the mural project residents worked together to assert their identity and to begin a human process of building community

What are the most significant achievements of the program?

Although the program helped residents build community and articulate a sense of belonging., the most significant achievements were in the lessons it taught the governmental agencies. .By organizing residents to create a community mural, the effort taught two agencies how to cross beyond their traditional boundaries and reach out to people. The County's Housing and Public Arts departments became more responsive to their constituencies by exploring innovative ways to reach them. Public housing saw beyond housing structures and structured youth programs and explored art as the vehicle for human expression. Trusting the process, they gave residents full autonomy to express themselves. In the end, the Department received a product that had complete community buy -in and conveyed a pro-social message to others. Similar rewards were found by the Public Art Department, which traditionally explores human expression by focusing on the end-product; that is either by commissioning a piece or educating the community about its collection. Through this project, the department explored an art process as a means of expression. In so doing, the department developed a product that served to express a community's voice and further encouraged families in a community with tremendous deficiencies in its accessibility to art to explore the varieties of human artistic expression. Both risked and successfully sought new ways enhance their service delivery.

How replicable is this program?

This art-based program is not about painting murals, something that is replicated too easily with paint cans and disposable brushes. It is about exploring a range of opportunities to build community by incorporating the ideas and talents of those most affected. Because art is a universal language, it tears down personal barriers that may exist between the participants and allows them to openly interact with one another. Because it focuses on the positive, residents work in an environment without threats or stigmatization. By underscoring cross-cultural influences, it is also empowering the community to break down cultural barriers and misconceptions. Inevitably, this leads to discovery, awareness, and integration. As such, agencies can utilize this art-based, participant-driven method to provide underserved and/or special populations with opportunities for interaction and in so doing them bring them into the community fold. Because of its success in the Naranja Project, the County's Police Housing Bureau is collaborating with Art in Public Places to replicate this project in two public housing sites in the first half of 1998. Moreover, the Housing Department is looking at replicating this program in a dozen sites, modifying it as needed, in order to.develop on-site studios that will create art to be sold at a gallery in a tourist area (like Lincoln Road). This allows for more than community building, but provides an economic development opportunities for youth and families moving from welfare to workfare.

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