The artwork of local teens was on display during a recent event hosted by professors Courtney Mauldin and Rochele Royster at Syracuse University’s South Side Communications Center.
Participants in the event, “ArtStory: Love & Language,” were members of the Breedlove Readers, a young adult book club for middle and high school Black girls in Central New York. Their artwork was inspired by the books as well as their own lives.
“They were able to curate an exhibition, tell a collective story of their experiences and explore themes from our book discussions such as Black girlhood, self-love, identity, hair, friendship, coming of age and societal pressures,” says Mauldin, an assistant professor of educational leadership in the School of Education, who co-founded Breedlove Readers. “The value of this type of programming is its power to foster community, bridge literacy and the…