Client:
The Robin Hood Foundation

Product:
Library Mural

Medium:
Mural

Description:
The L!brary Initiative enlisted the talent of leading designers, and architects in transforming school libraries within New York City’s public school system into inspiring places for learning. It is part of a larger effort by The Robin Hood Foundation and the New York City Board of Education to improve student literacy rates, especially in some of the poorest neighborhoods.

Alfalfa Studio was invited to design a 7-foot-high, mural running along the library interior at PS 195–197 in the Bronx. We hoped to represent the library as a sanctuary for language and the world of ideas; and to give the students a sense of ownership in their library.

We gathered 30 students from Grades 1 through 6 for a workshop to generate content for the mural. We asked them to have fun painting their answers to questions about words. For example, “Imagine that you could eat words. Which one do you think would taste really good?” At the end, we collected over 1,000 painted words.

The students’ words are prominently displayed into a mural of a child’s universe. Superimposed on silhouettes arranged in thematic groups, the children’s words give voice and attitude to this visual universe, bouncing playfully from homelife to nature, from foods to media and books, and from animals to people and professions.