The running joke in the art community that the first thing to go in the COVID-19 crisis was the art and artists because they are considered non-essential is being challenged big time thanks to a collaborative mural recently unveiled at Domino Park on the Williamsburg waterfront.
The collaborative between developer Two Trees Management and Los Muralistas de El Puente features 10 diverse artists that painted 72 mostly black-and-white portraits onto 2-foot-square panels honoring individuals that have been frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two Trees is in charge of developing the 5-acre waterfront public park in Williamsburg as part of an 11-acre overall deal [including the park footprint] it made to develop the former Domino Sugar Factory and construct four other buildings on the 300 Kent Avenue site.
Los Muralistas de El Puente is a community mural group founded in 1990 and based in El Puente Academy for Peace & Justice, 250 Hooper Street in Williamsburg, which in turn is a consortium portfolio-based high-school which is exempt from the Regent exams.
Lead artist Joe Matunis said he and his students annually create murals for Domino Park, but the health crisis interrupted that tradition. As a union representative for El Puente Academy, Matunis said he’s in constant contact with the other smaller schools about the state of the city’s education system.
Matunis said due to budget cuts the Department of Education (DOE) is removing their support network and subsequently lumping them in with larger schools.
“We got through three, four months of remote learning pretty much intact. We had some struggles particularly with our English language learners, but we know how to do it. We know what works, what doesn’t,” said Matunis about remote learning and the disputed hybrid plan for reopening schools.
“Logistically, it’s impossible considering the staffing we have. You’re teaching half of your students, but at the same time, you need to be teaching to the ones that aren’t in school remotely. Our jobs are doubled,” said Matunis.
In the meantime, they’ve decided to pivot this summer break and use this art opportunity to expand the definition of what ‘essential’ is to Brooklyn’s workforce. The mural, employing El Puente Academy alumni Christopher Guerra and Maurilio Tendilla, encompasses personal accounts of each artist’s experience with an essential employee, whether it’s a doctor or delivery person, and strives to represent workers of different backgrounds.
“We could do like a benefit auction,” said Matunis about the project when it’s ready to come down, “A lot of the teaching artists lost their jobs, so we thought about doing a benefit auction of the pieces and splitting the proceeds with the artists.”
Matunis said that the art community in the city, pre-COVID, was already in tenuous situations because of higher rents and lower incomes.
“I’ve got a steady income because I’m a teacher, but a lot of them [artists] I knew if they weren’t going to be unemployed immediately, they were going to be left unemployed in the near future.”
To see the mural in person go to Domino Park, 300 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg.Domino.
