Citizen: Art for whom?
Context:
University art students and local artists are collaborating with residents on a "community-engaged art" project, creating murals and photo displays in your neighborhood. While visually striking, you have seen similar projects fade quickly and question their value in a city with urgent (crime+poverty) issues.
Dilemma:
A) Join the project and share feedback to guide them toward lasting community impact.
B) Decline to participate and instead direct your efforts toward official channels.
Story behind the dilemma:
In spring 2018, a study was conducted alongside a Community Engaged Art course at The College of New Jersey, exploring collaborative public art strategies. Participants included nine students (studio art majors and preservice educators) and four community collaborators The course, meeting twice weekly from January to May, integrated fieldwork, interviews, surveys, focus groups, and visual journals for data collection.
Guided by the C.R.A.F.T. methodology (Contact, Research, Action, Feedback, Teaching), students engaged in two projects:
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Inside Out: A participatory street art initiative by JR, where students created a photo installation themed "Fabric of Trenton" through dialogue with residents.
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East Trenton Collaborative: Co-designing a community garden mural (4′ × 24′) and bilingual educational signage with locals.
Students documented evolving perspectives in visual journals, with reflective end-of-term annotations. Informal interviews and participant observation supplemented data. Longitudinal feedback was gathered via surveys and focus groups (initially, post-project, and one year later in spring 2019), assessing cognitive, emotional, and social impacts. Community artists mentored students, co-created artwork, and helped validate findings.
The study emphasized reciprocal collaboration, blending academic rigor with grassroots engagement to address Trenton’s sociopolitical context while fostering transformative learning.