ABSTRACT
Community-built art projects can empower young people by helping them gain social capital through acquiring new skills, receiving mentorship from community leaders, making connections with their peers through teamwork, and participating in peer leadership opportunities. Art can be a tool for empowerment, because through art making, people build connections, receive recognition, and foster their own creativity (Grams 2010). Community mural-making as a tool for youth development teaches young people to think outside of the box-outside of the norms of art to be made for an elite class of educated museum goers. Through participatory creative placemaking, students can develop the courage to try, the skill to execute, and the resources to accomplish something new. As a form of youth-led action research, art projects can be a powerful means to inform and catalyze community organizing and revitalization (London 2007).
