This summer, the staff in the Department of Dramatic Writing was awarded a Work Life Caring Culture Grant to support the production of a mural in one of the department hallways. The idea was inspired by reflecting on the impact murals had on feelings of belonging for staff members in the past. This project was supported by the larger NYU community at every turn. We enlisted the aid of our muralist consultant, Chloë Kohlhoss (NYU Gallatin ‘23), to put us in touch with Yetunde Sapp (bio below), who led our team through collaborative workshops that resulted in the initial drafts for our mural. We spoke about how the Dramatic Writing department has evolved throughout its history, how the act of writing itself has evolved over time, and how our commitment to community values underlies it all. Yetunde helped us translate our concepts into a clear visual language, and began sketching the outline for our mural. The staff of Dramatic Writing, alongside the inimitable help of fellow NYU community members and friends, spent our summer painting under Yetunde’s guidance. Our finishing touches of the mural are our photo frames, the contents of which will remain in motion over time to feature upcoming work by the students and alumni of our department.
This process allowed us to communicate about how we worked together, and provided us an opportunity to work independently, consistently contributing to what amounts to a product representative of the sum of its parts. No one person completed this mural: instead, every brushstroke was an individual contribution made next to, on top of, and underneath another mark of paint from another helping hand. The mural is not only a visual introduction to what our department is all about, but also a physical manifestation of how our staff works to create a community that thrives: overlapping work, sometimes unseen, whose efforts undergird and make a foundation for the rich and detailed tapestry of our department.
