Public Art To Address The Inaccessibility of Outdoor Spaces for Black Women
Through the Walking Through Her Stories project, the narratives of women of color will become a source of art, information, and healing for the New Brunswick community. To tackle the inequity of outdoor spaces, a public story collective will be created to honor, highlight, and exhibit the voices of women of color who experience the greatest physical and mental safety threats when engaging in outdoor leisure activities. These stories will transform into a permanent final intervention, visually displaying the narratives and hardships women of color face in the community. In this paper, I will further identify the community of benefit, change agent, vulnerability, audience/stakeholders, and deliberative facilitation of the project.
Vulnerability
Black women report higher exposure to stress and stressful life events than white individuals. They also face gender and race-related stressors, as well as unique stressors related to gendered racism, which contribute to hypertension disparities and poor health outcomes.
Additionally, experiences of patriarchal and racialized threats on the streetscape disconnect women from the outdoors and from each other. Such isolation prevents the benefits of the outdoors or leisure experiences and minimizes potential for healing. Stress in Black women leads to worse measurables related to quality of life. A proven solution is access to open space.
Community of Benefit
Women of color are the intended community of benefit based on their needs and experiences influenced by historical power dynamics. According to the article, Racial Complexities of Outdoor Spaces: An Analysis of African American’s Lived Experiences in Outdoor Recreation, “regular contact with nature positively affects blood pressure, depressive mood states, cholesterol, general outlook on life, stress reduction, anxiety and child behavioral problems” (Goodrid). Outdoor recreation can be viewed as a restorative, creative wellness practice that improves emotional, spiritual, social, and physical well-being. These scientifically-proven health benefits demonstrate the importance for marginalized individuals who experience greater mental and physical health threats to engage in outdoor recreation.
Change Agent
To facilitate healing and community organizing, the Walking Through Her Stories project offers a space to improve mental health of a diverse group of individuals and share the exclusivity of outdoor spaces. In “Risky Bodies at Leisure: Young Women Negotiating Space and Place” the authors breaks down risk: our knowledge and awareness of it, our perceptions of it dictate how we live our lives, how we pursue our relationships with others, how we navigate our relationships with our bodies, where we choose to live, and how we work and engage in leisure. The article dissects the spatial inequality of leisure opportunities. The following quote demonstrates that it is not the space itself that is risky but the social constructions developed around it, “space is gendered, sexualized, classed and racialized; and ease of access and movement through space for different groups is subject to constant negotiation and contestation, and is embedded in relations of power” (Green & Singleton, 859). Therefore, it is crucial to break down the mental barriers and social norms which continue to block women of color from traversing outdoor spaces safely. Most importantly, I gained a strong understanding of the importance of community safety. If women and people of color were going to join the community and gain access to the outdoors, we would have to be incredibly thoughtful and intentional in the locations we choose, using information about the relatively private community and trying to ensure the space felt comfortable.
I will focus on the need to heal from environmental racism and grief. To carry out the project I will collaborate with Girls on the Run, a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running. Through the story collective, hosted by Girls on the Run, New Brunswick will hold a supportive space for women of color to unpack their narratives underlining their experiences with the outdoors. Furthermore, storytelling facilitates community building by “providing a forum where people can share what they are doing, and learn about what others are doing [which] can lead to a positive feedback loop in which actions inspire other actions and support the creation of new social norms” (Hodge). Community building, recognition of biased elements of design and policy, and healing are priorities throughout the planning and implementation of the project.
Audience/Stakeholders
The target audience is young Black girls in New Brunswick who can see themselves represented in the mural and feel empowered to step outside. Along those lines, caregivers and educators in the community will be able to envision Black girls outside and feel inspired to encourage those experiences in safe ways. Furthermore, Black women can also view the art as a form of healing from the trauma they may have experienced as a result of increased stressors and inaccessibility to outdoor spaces. In addition, the mural will serve to spark conversation on outdoor spaces and exclusivity. Park overseers and urban planners in the city can learn about the intention behind the city and proactively intent to reduce the barriers to entry for Black women in outdoor spaces.
Key stakeholders include outdoor recreation groups in the area like Girls on the Run and GirlTrek. In addition, health and wellness researchers or professionals in charge of devising physical education curriculum for students. Furthermore, park directors, the superintendent of parks (Salvatore Salsa), grounds and landscape architectures, landscape designer for New Brunswick are potential collaborators for the project. Individuals at Rutgers including the director of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, Rebecca Mark, and athletes also have key opinions and resources to shape the project. It could be of value to get local sports teams and “celebrities’’ to get involved for exposure.
Deliberative Facilitation
Public convening opportunities are crucial to my project because it allows the development process to slow down and create opportunities for greater democratic consensus. This is specifically important to consider in the context of representation through public art and memorial. Four core questions to ask stakeholders that are really important to develop the Walking Through Her Stories public art piece include: In what spaces do Black women feel most safe? What are the barriers to getting Black women to use public spaces? What risks do Black women consider when planning to walk somewhere? What do you hope the mural is able to accomplish?
In an interview with Lynn Sherman, Program Coordinator at Girls on the Run of Central New Jersey, she shared that the organization uses running as a vehicle to deliver our lessons so the girls learn and mostly for teaching perseverance and goal setting. But, she said, “maybe the girls do not come from a culture where running is part of what their parents did. So in New Brunswick when I first started bringing programs here girls would be like why would I want to run?” Although both are very important, her perspective on the issue shifted my attention away from the inaccessibility of spaces to the cultural barriers to outdoor spaces. Insights like these further illustrate the importance of public convening opportunities and discussions regarding the vulnerability and community of benefit.
Final Remarks
Women of color are unprotected and excluded from the benefits of public space and outdoors leisure experiences. With Walking Through Her Stories, New Brunswick can resist oppressive structures and everyday risks that push women into isolated private spheres. The public joy, leisure, and feminist community expressed by women of color are inherently acts of resistance in the patriarchal city and colonized outdoors. Through this consciousness-raising story collective, young women of color will take up and reclaim space together.
