SPECIAL PROJECTS
MOMA PS1
PUBLIC ART AT MOMA PS1
“I want to live a life where people say she learned a lot from that,” says Amira, one of the participants in a 2020 virtual exhibit that Young New collaborated on with MoMA PS1, New York City’s premier contemporary arts museum.
YNY graduates curated the exhibition, which included art-work they created such as aspirational self-portraits, and cut-outs of animals, combined with digital recordings of their stories of arrest in an interactive format.
This public exhibit gave young people a platform to use their creativity and powerful voices to bring public attention to their experience with the criminal legal system, and their visions for its reform.
MANHATTAN DA FORUM
YOUNG NEW YORKERS MANHATTAN DA FORUM
During the 2021 election cycle, we hosted a virtual forum on criminal justice reform between YNY graduates and the nine candidates for Manhattan District Attorney. This conversation, which had an audience of over 100 people, provided an opportunity for youth-centered dialogue and relationship-building between our graduates and criminal justice leaders who hold direct power over young people’s lives.
By showcasing our young people’s deep wisdom in this critical conversation we hope to open up a new reality that believes that all young New Yorkers have the right to learn from their mistakes and grow into thriving adults.
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CAN THE US BE JUST? PANEL
CAN THE US BE JUST? PANEL
"Can the U.S. be Just?" was a panel featuring Young New Yorkers graduates and criminal legal leaders in NYC—Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and NYC’s Department of Probation Commissioner Ana M. Bermúdez—to discuss the federal impacts on local youth justice.
Less than a week after the 2020 federal election results were called we heard from the perspective of criminal legal agencies and the lived experience of our extraordinary graduates on the question so many people were asking — Can the U.S. be Just?
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