Women’s Building Dreams,

Collaborative Community Mural Project, Women’s Building, Boreum Hill, Brooklyn. 2017

A couple of years ago, I did a community block party for the Women’s Building of NYC and the NoVo Foundation. It was s party to celebrate the concept of “transformation from the inside out.” Specifically, the previously planned transformation of the former Bayview Correction Facility, a medium security women’s prison in Chelsea, into a women’s building for social transformation and justice. People celebrating the mission of the Women’s Building project passed through all day and contributed to the mural. This included everyone from women who were formerly incarcerated at Bayview, now doing the work to end mass incarceration, to kids walking back from their gymnastics classes at Chelsea Piers. These pieces have since been installed on the fourth floor of the NoVo building. Unfortunately the transformation of Bayview into the Women’s Building has been cancelled, but certainly there will be future projects on the horizon to bring this wonderful vision to reality.