Episcopal Social Services of New York

CITYarts comes to ESS!

We had the pleasure of working with an artist from the non-profit CITYarts last week. Jordan Taler visited one of our non-secure detention facilities to produce very inspiring artwork with our male youth. The workshop titled “Pieces for Peace” is one of CITYart’s global art programs, where they work to empower youth around the world to create art that answers the question: “What does peace look like to me?” Pieces for Peace has worked with youth in Pakistan, Israel and Germany.

Particularly for our youth who are facing the juvenile justice system and struggling between concepts of right and wrong; freedom and innocence; and adolescence and adulthood; it was interesting to see from what pockets these youth generated peace from. For some it was the idea of community. One youth drew four houses in a row, representing a block. He said, “four houses in a block, that’s peace to me.” Another envisioned peace as the world carefully cradled by a god.

And yet another chose words as his medium, simply writing, “Love the world.”

Thank you to CITYarts for working with ESS!