Students Invite International Graffiti Artists To Redecorate At Queens High School
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Graffiti artists have gone wild inside a high school in Queens, and it's a good thing.
As CBS2's Cindy Hsu reported, students invited them to turn the school around and do some teaching through tagging.
Graffiti is normally a no-go in schools, but that's not the case in the halls of August Martin High School.
Over three days, nearly 150 graffiti and street artists descended on the school to turn the plain white walls into works of art. Student leaders on the dream team came up with the idea.
"The young people not only came up with the project, created a proposal, pitched to the principal, went through all the steps to make it happen," Dream Director Syreeta Gates said.
The school has struggled with low attendance and graduation rates. Students wanted to transform the school environment to get more kids want to come to school. They reached out to the artists from 5pointz, the graffiti palace in Long Island City that was demolished last year.
The artists loved the idea and came from as far away as Japan and France to donate their work, and even brought their own supplies. The work was done in May.
"It was really an honor because we were so appreciative, because one of these pieces is worth thousands of dollars," Timothy Williams said.
Trivella Osborne said walking into school is now incredible.
"And look you see this piece on the wall, it's like breathtaking. Somebody actually spent their time doing all of this for us," she said, "We as the students had a voice and we wanted to make a change so they helped us."
The students want to share this amazing art with the community. The public will be invited to come check it out. Next school year the students will be giving tours of the incredible halls.
The school opened its doors to the public from 5 to 7 to show off the art, and plan to do that as often as possible.
