NoVo Foundation

Mural at the NoVo Foundation’s new offices in Boreum Hill, Brooklyn, 2018-2019.

Mural Team: Anagh Banerjee, Crystal Bruno, Kyung Chyun, ShinYeon Moon, Kien Nguyen, Eric Okdeh (mosaic artist), Adan Palermo, Jess Poplawski and Colin Verdi.

The entire design of this 8,000+ sq foot, 8 wall mural came from workshops and meetings with NoVo grantee organization and staffers working globally in diverse sectors to transform society. The entrance section of the mural focuses on meeting people on their journey, wherever they may be. the concept for the forest came from a conversation with a class from the public school next door, for kids with high levels of special needs. One 7th grade boy, who apparently had just become verbal the year before, said that when he walked into the tunnel, what he would want to see would be trees . . . “A forest!” The setting is a surreal landscape of a forest set in a river. Glimmering ovals of light represent the blood of ancestral lives lost in the water.

The topic of intergenerational trauma came up frequently, and one grantee even talked about how the sound waves of ancestors’ voices who died at sea during the slave trade are still traveling under the ocean. One challenge of this work is the consideration of how we truthfully face and honor trauma in an image that can resonate on diverse levels, and speak both to the past and to a collective vision for the future.

There really isn’t a single panoramic shot of the NoVo mural that captures the entire thing, as it is made of many walls in different parts of the building. Painting murals, you are lucky to be able to use tiny brushes on giant walls, and that’s what happened here. It means that you had the time to tend to every single area. It is possible when you have an amazing team and an incredible client who cares deeply about the work and respects the process. 

The scales of the fish symbolize the value of equal parts of a whole. Several indigenous participants in the workshops referenced rivers, fish and water as life, others discussed the complexity of water as a place where lives have been lost and continue to be lost (climate change).

So in all the imagery, particularly around nature, there exists a certain amount of duality. The ancestral figures supporting the contemporary figures represents the idea that when we heal the earth, we heal our bodies. And every window is lined with the words of iconic revolutionaries, artists, thinkers, and activists throughout history. These quotes appear on the NoVo Foundation website, each quote chosen by a NoVo staffer as someone who has influenced them. They are best seen from inside the offices, as you look out the windows.

Find our more information on the NoVo Foundation website.

“Maybe the purpose of being here, wherever we are, is to increase the durability and occasions of love among and between peoples.” — June Jordan