Park Avenue Armory Youth Corps
Youth Corps, Park Avenue Armory’s high school aged internship program employing students from five NYC public schools – planned a project inspired by the movement and design styles of Bill T Jones’ Deep Blue Sea, and exploring a century of accomplishment by female identifying historical figures inspired by the 100 Years | 100 Women symposium. As it turned out, the cancellation of those events proved no barrier to the creativity and innovation of these young people, who researched and created everything that was planned and more. Instead of working together around a table in the education office, the Youth Corps had worked independently at home and together on Zoom to each identify and research a female-identifying historical figure that they found inspiring, and share those figures through visual art on the canvas of Converse All-Star Sneakers.
The Youth Corps interpreted that prompt in the widest and wildest possible manner, submitting extraordinary visual art creations, a stuffed doll telling the story of Mamie Phipps Clark (the psychologist who studied children’s racial preference in dolls), to a play-by-play of a tennis match between a student from Williamsburg High School for Architecture and Design and 23 Grand Slam title-winner Serena Williams.
Afrika D. / Mary Eliza Mahoney "Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African American nurse. She was known for her compassion and efficiency. I used the color brown to represent healing and warmth, while the cow pattern symbolizes her compassion and a selfless nature."
