On Monday, a 50-foot-long mural in a distinctively Subway Graffiti style was unveiled at Walton Street and East 150^th Street in the East Tremont section of the Bronx. If you were to catch sight of it on the fly, you’d think that you had slipped into a time warp. It has the authenticity of the spray-can graffiti that literally subsumed most of New York City’s subway cars in the 1970s and ‘80s. 

The Subway Art History mural in the Bronx. Photo © Jianai Jenny Chen.

The mural is part of Subway Art History, an on-going New York City-wide mural project that remakes the classic paintings from the landmark book Subway Art by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant as tribute to some of the most extraordinary moving steel artworks ever painted. The program was created in collaboration with the Somaly Mam Foundation to give students in Wings Academy a platform to protest against human trafficking and modern-day slavery and to use their art as a community outreach and leadership training tool.

The students, who are predominantly Puerto Rican, Dominican, and African-American, participated in a two-month program that began with reading The Road to Lost Innocence, the autobiography of Somaly Mam, who was sold into prostitution when she was 12, liberated herself and has since gone back, liberated over 7,000 women and children from slavery, and made it her life’s mission to fight human trafficking.

The young artists worked with a group of former graffiti writers who now use their talents to create legal works of art. By using a style of art as resonant as graffiti, the students receive a two-part history lesson; one on an art form so vibrant that it has become a global phenomenon, and one on the history of slavery.

Carla Jacobs, a student at Wings, commented, “I always knew there was prostitution happening in around our neighborhood, at Hunts Point, I was surprised to learn that some women and girls could be there against their will. These girls are my age and even younger. I never knew this type of modern day slavery existed. I am very concerned about the conditions these girls are forced into and want to do something to help change that.”  

The Somaly Mam Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the eradication of slavery worldwide, with a special focus on Southeast Asia, where the trafficking of women and girls is widespread. SMF supports survivor rescue, shelter and rehabilitation programs globally, as well as empowering survivors of slavery with job training and education. In addition, SMF's awareness and advocacy campaigns shed light on the crime of human trafficking and involve governments and individuals in fight against modern-day slavery.

Subway Art History was launched in 2010 by a collective of former graffiti writers. This New York City-wide mural project pays tribute to graffiti’s early artists, many of whom have been long forgotten. In deference to those past artists, the creators of Subway Art History seek to be anonymous and allow the paintings to speak on their own as they are recreated by socially engaged neighborhood groups.