Joel Bergner

Joel Bergner (aka Joel Artista) is a muralist/ street artist and educator whose work focuses on issues of culture, social justice, and telling the stories of those who have been ignored or misunderstood by society.^[1][2][3] Working primarily in spray paint, acrylic paint, stencil and mosaic, Bergner has created large public murals in many US cities as well in Brazil, the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, Cuba, Kenya, Mozambique, Poland, Cape Verde (West Africa), El Salvador, and Peru.^[4][5][6][7] His mural projects often feature collaborations with human rights and youth-based organizations, most notably the International Rescue Committee, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, the Boys & Girls Club, UNICEF and Amnesty International, who invited him to be a featured artist at their Human Rights Art Festival in 2010.^[8][9][10]

Through his "Action Ashé! Global Mural Project," Joel leads workshops with disadvantaged youth around the world, who participate in the creation of public artwork. He has worked with incarcerated teenagers, Syrian refugees, youth from marginalized communities, the mentally and physically disabled, and street children in Rio de Janeiro.^{[11][12][13][14]} Joel has also created public art projects based on his own research and interviews, including murals about the plight of global refugees, survivors of domestic violence, Afro-Colombians displaced by political violence, the Civil War in El Salvador, Cape Verdean culture and history, and immigration.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20]} He was awarded the “Best Public Mural of 2004” by the mural arts organization Precita Eyes in San Francisco.^[21]

In 2013 and 2014 Joel Bergner created public art and led educational workshops in collaboration with Syrian refugee children and teenagers in the Za'atari Refugee Camp in partnership with the organizations aptART, ACTED and UNICEF. ^[22][23] In 2014 he was a featured artist with the global event Street Child World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, where he worked with former and current street children from around the world to create public art. ^[24] In 2013 Joel Bergner organized and led the Kibera Walls for Peace Initiative in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya in collaboration with the Kibera Hamlets youth organization. The project, which was widely covered in the international media, involved peace-building workshops with local children and teenagers and the creation of a series of street paintings that promoted peace ahead of the 2013 presidential elections, all of which was documented for a film by Nairobi filmmaker Willie Owusu.^{[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]} The initiative included a collaboration with local graffiti artists for the "Peace Train," in which the artists and youth participants painted a 10-car passenger train with art aimed at easing ethnic tensions as the election approached. Kibera Walls for Peace was covered by National Public Radio (NPR), CNN, Arise TV, BBC, USA Today, Reuters, and Agence-France Presse (AFP).^{[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]}

Joel has been covered extensively in the media. His public artwork and art-based social projects have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and in the books Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo and Mural Art Volume 3.^{[41][42][43][44]} He has been featured on the international news networks Al Jazeera English, Voice of America and BBC World News.^[45][46][47] He has been widely featured on local television, radio, newspapers, blogs and websites in the Washington DC and Baltimore regions, Cape Verde, Brazil, Cuba, San Francisco and El Salvador.^{[48][49][50][51][52][53]}

References

External links

• Joel Bergner's website: Action Ashé! Global Mural Project