Beauty in the Struggle
2023This mural was conceptualized, designed, and painted by incarcerated youth, with critical aesthetic support from facilitating arts educators.
In a group brainstorming process, one student mentioned wanting to include the lotus flower, a blossom that literally grows from mud. Another student wanted to include barbed wire behind the lotus, a third was a poet who wrote the words that accompany the image.
Students worked together to choose colors, design, and placement, and painted the mural together in class.