Artists can reimagine the ways in which history impacts our lives, our streets, neighborhoods, and the city itself. Their work can often invite us to reimagine what a more just world might look like in issues of public health, housing, employment, and education. Two artists featured here are Miguel Luciano and his Mapping Resistance project, and Walis Johnson’s Red Line Labyrinth.

Mapping Resistance: The Young Lords in El Barrio ran through the summer of 2019. Conceived by artist Miguel Luciano, the project featured billboards of photographs taken by photographer Hiram Maristany (and a former Young Lord), and placed strategically throughout East Harlem. Project Website here.

In Spring 2019, artist Walis Johnson brought her Red Line Labyrinth public art project to BCC. Johnson and BCC students installed the public art piece on the college’s central quad, and it was designed to encouraged dialogue among the campus community about the devastating effects redlining had on our neighborhoods. The collaboration between the artist and BCC students culminated in a show at the James Gallery, CUNY Graduate Center as part of a CUNY community college project entitled Pressing Public Issues.