Help Us Reveal What’s Beyond the Wall!

The Northern NJ Community Foundation’s ArtsBergen is launching a new project: Beyond the Wall: Developing Digital Content Illuminating The Black Women’s Mural. 

The Northern NJ Community Foundation (NNJCF), along with community partners, produced The Black Women’s Mural: Celebrating the Significance of the Black Suffragists and Black Women in Englewood, NJ, a 520 sq. ft. mural painted on the building of the Women’s Rights Information Center.

It was so successful community members requested we work towards creating a website where viewers can discover the underlying meaning and messages about the artwork. But this won’t be your average website, but one filled with engaging audio and written stories and poetry about the women depicted in the mural!

We have a stellar team on board.

Jasmine Daria Cannon is our scholar, curator, and writer, whose interests include late nineteenth and early twentieth century African American history, black feminist labor histories, and what she calls “riotous women”, or black women who can be found in the midst of riots, political, and social discord. Jasmine will develop and create the content for project, “painting” verbal stories through biographical sketches and poetry, tapping into history and incorporating curated material from varied sources and disciplines.

Lilith Haig is a talented designer of both websites and motion graphics. She will be behind the scenes working to build an interactive and engaging online experience, along with our sound engineer, Raphael Sabastian, who will record interviews and mix interesting sound bites to bring the stories to life.

The website will ultimately serve as an educational archive and resource for viewers of the mural (a new sign with the site’s QR Code will be installed at the site) as well as locally for the people of the City of Englewood and Bergen County-at-large.

WHAT WILL BE CREATED AS PART OF THIS PROJECT?

  • An interactive webpage with original, engaging, and educational digital and downloadable content describing the meaning of the mural, its process, and biographical and historical stories about the women represented in the artwork.

WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE PROJECT?

  • Using commentary, poetry, and curated material, create a website that is visually compelling, engaging, and educational that elaborates on the historical and humanistic aspects of a piece of community co-created public art that has had significant impact in Englewood. The website will also represent the artwork in digital form.
  • Establish through online technology a digital archive of the subjects of the mural, the artistic and co-creation process and the artwork’s social relevance.
  • Provide local residents and students of Englewood and beyond — and history and art appreciators — an educational resource that offers materials on 1. The history of the 19th amendment 2. The history of civil rights in Englewood 3. Biographical data of historic and living Black women in the mural as well as on the artist 4. The artistic process 5. The social impact and relevance of the art.
  • Continue to move forward the conversation about racial equity and raising the importance and purpose of diversity, inclusion and equity in the community.
  • Create supplemental resources that bolster the vital importance of public art and how it influences and shapes the communities where it is installed, as well as the concepts of creative placemaking, community-driven arts, and racial justice.
  • Instill ongoing pride of place and sense of honoring and belonging by lifting up the content as valuable and worthy of a digital living archive. One of our speakers at the mural unveiling stated, “If a picture says a thousand words, Englewood now has a history book.” Englewood has the visual via the mural, this project will now give it the words.

Partner with us so others (and you!) can encounter the unheard stories and histories behind this amazing and impactful mural!

 

This program was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.


Funding has been made possible in part through grant funds administered by the Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs, Department of Parks, through a General Operating Support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State.

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Age-Friendly Englewood