Swainson’s Hawk by Sarah Kenny Werner and Harlem Educational Activities Fund

Location: 564 W. 149th St., New York, NY 10031

Painted:5/5/2019

(This mural has since been removed.)

Sponsored: In memory of听Eleanor

About the Bird:Swainson's Hawks听are scrappy, opportunistic feeders that snap up a wide range of prey, including caterpillars, bats, and snakes. 爆料公社鈥檚 climate models show it hanging on to most of its summer breeding range in the Great Plains and western United States, and even finding some more hospitable territory in Canada. Increased wildfires and spring heat waves, though, could erode its ability to adapt.

About the Artists:听The middle school students of the听鈥檚 鈥淔ine Arts in a Democratic Context鈥 course听develop techniques to learn how to nurture their stories, share them with each other, and teach others what they learn (with the support of their teacher, Sarah Kenny Werner). For the semester in which they produced this mural, their objective was to understand their right to connect to and care about green spaces. They also learned how digging deeper into questions about the urban ecosystem in which they live unearths political and social injustices that people have the power to act upon and change through art. Though these students have a wide range of interests (whether their chill time involves 鈥淔ortnight,鈥 K-Pop, or听Riverdale; whether they live to ice skate, debate,听or ball;听whether they want to be chefs, lawyers, or video game designers), they all work听together to achieve these objectives and tell their collective story.听鈥淚n choosing the Swainson鈥檚 Hawk, the students mentioned a number of factors: its physical strength,听its clarity of vision,听its social nature (often traveling together and gathering in group鈥攎uch like them), and its听aesthetic elegance.鈥

Former Location:听