Mural Arts Philadelphia helps kids with after-school programs

Student arts exhibit

Currently, Mural Arts serves young people across the city at about two dozen public schools, parks and recreation centers, along with the Juvenile Justice Services Center and the Achieving Independence Center, which serves young people in the foster care system.

“We are in various places around the city working with a wide variety of young people,” Nugent said.

Each year, Mural Arts holds a student arts exhibit to display their work.

“We are transforming our gallery space into an immersive experience created entirely by the young people in our program,” she said. “Students in our program gain artistic skills, obviously, but we also see an increase in confidence in the young people in our program. We provide a scaffolding that allows them to build their skills and build their technique and feel more confident in the work that they put out there.”

Christopher Emdin, a professor of science education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, advocates using art and music to teach math and science.

“Any public mural requires deep scientific, mathematical and artistic knowledge,” Emdin said. “You have to know what the background is that you are going to paint on, you have to know what aerosol you are going to use, you have to understand the law of physics to understand the size and scope of it.”

Public art also benefits the community, Emdin said, especially when it can participate.

“Public art in urban communities serve as opportunities for creative artists who otherwise don’t have a platform, who don’t get invited to museums and are not perceived as legitimate artists to have a platform, or a gathering space where they can feature their work,” Emdin said. “When you have artists that don’t have a voice, you have people who have tendencies to engage in problematic behavior. Public arts serve as gathering spaces for communities who don’t have access to museums or other gathering.”

A 2022 study by the Urban Institute showed that public art created with local community input and placed in that community, such as murals, can have a positive impact on well-being and public safety and serve as a strong community tool.

In 2018, the mural “American Tableau” was dedicated at Philadelphia’s Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center to celebrate the lives and sacrifices of U.S. veterans.

Mural Arts artist James Burns collaborated with a group of veterans and the Warrior Writers at Impact Services for more than a year to create the work, which was a partnership between Mural Arts, the city of Philadelphia, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and the Veterans Empowerment Center.

The mural depicted veterans’ lives before, during and after their service. Many VA staff served as models for the mural, which also included the likenesses of Crescenz’s and Burns’ fathers, who were both veterans of the Vietnam War.

Many of the veterans who worked on the project suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, but described the project as transformative, according to an article by the National Education Association.

“This mural made us feel like we matter,” said David Allen, a veteran of Operation Desert Storm who worked on the mural, in the article. “I think it’s important to our mental health.”

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series that explores the impact of creativity on student learning and success. WHYY and this series are supported by the Marrazzo Family Foundation, a foundation focused on fostering creativity in Philadelphia youth, which is led by Ellie and Jeffrey Marrazzo. WHYY News produces independent, fact-based news content for audiences in Greater Philadelphia, Delaware and South Jersey.