The Hewitt Times

What do you see in the video above? A piece by Maggie Tobin, a speaker at the 2012 TEDxYouth@Hewitt conference. This stop-motion piece of art shows the transformation of something destructive and secluded into something shared and positive.

Artist, mother, teacher, and community organizer Maggie Tobin has been living in Kensington, New York for five years now. Imagine an obscure community, filled with trash but empty of trees. Its inhabitants live separately, individuals within a dysfunctional community. When Maggie first moved here, trying to raise a family, the living environment was not up to par. Completely overlooked by politicians, Maggie’s neighborhood in Kensington just was not given its fair share of attention, and it lacked a unified voice. But Maggie wouldn’t stand for that.

So how could she use her passion for art to reinvigorate this neighborhood and help her community? The answer for Maggie was art for social change. Her first step toward improvement was founding the West Kensington Action Group, initially comprised only of Maggie, her five-year-old daughter, and her three-year-old son. Their goal was, and still is, to help unify their community through artistic endeavors.

The group’s first beautification project involved knocking on the doors of every home in Kensington for people’s signatures, in order to simply adorn the neighborhood with trees. But the group had to overcome language barriers and several other obstacles in the process–provincial city officials who didn’t seem to have time for Kensington’s small neighborhood, controlling neighbors hesitant of change, and an overwhelming perception of the group as illegitimate and incapable. But this bump in the road wouldn’t stop this action group from journeying on.

Next, after the group got started, another big issue pertaining to the community’s image became huge private lots, barren excepting an abundance of trash. After calls and emails served fruitless, Maggie decided to create art of her own. Rallying up everyone they could, the action group made a mural that stretched to each end of the lot. On the mural was a mission statement, begging the owner to clean his lot up for the community’s sake. Sure enough, the lot was free of trash within three short days.

In celebration of their efforts, everyone involved had a seed-bombing party. Deciding not to let fences and locks defer them from beautifying their neighborhood, Maggie and her friends planted flowers through creative means. Mixing indigenous wildflower seeds with mud and throwing them over the fence, Maggie demonstrated a simple way in which she used art for social change and ‘planted’ something greater than she ever imagined.

Next, Maggie chose a bigger canvas: Church Avenue. Deprived of all parks and public spaces, the area desperately needed a place to spruce up the otherwise gloomy neighborhood.

In the image below you can see the large effect of a small community that has a dream in mind. To celebrate this art, Maggie wanted the whole community to come together, using this green space as a platform. She initiated the Kensington World Fair, showcasing her incredibly diverse community through the art of individuals and groups. Maggie, however, wasn’t done with Church Avenue: “I’m not done with it,” she said determinedly. “We can do more.”

Maggie is truly the epitome of perseverance. When people don’t listen to her, she accepts their opinions but keeps trying to persuade them. She will not take ‘No.’ for an answer. She’s now proposing something even greater for Church Avenue: a real park with a greener atmosphere and a human sundial encircled by benches.

She says:

“We just have to keep trying, using our collective voice to portray our dreams and turn them into reality.”

Maggie hopes that this space will soon be a public place where people can join together through a shared feeling, an all-too rare occasion in Kensington.

Have you ever been in a flash mob? What about a trash mob? By creating the Kensington Trash Mob, Maggie was able to get her community together to ameliorate the space even further. Instead of dancing, the Kensington Trash Mob invades spaces and picks up trash! Having grown from a group of about five people, their ‘mob’ now has over 30 members, progressively helping the area, one trash mob at a time.

Additionally, Maggie teaches people how art can serve true meaning and purpose and encourages people not to worry when things don’t go as planned. For example, after Maggie got trees lined up an avenue in her neighborhood, just like Park avenue here in Manhattan, her community did not respond well. Frantic about double-parking, city officials took the trees down at once. But Maggie wouldn’t let that stop her from making art. She snuck out in the middle of night, incognito, just to do so:

So how has Maggie conveyed her message of art for social change? I was lucky enough to ask her this question in an interview.

Maggie: I teach a class at Nightingale called Art for Social Change, extending the reach of my message to youth in New York City. For their final project, they all have to dream of an idea and follow through on it. However, immediately students thought of having bake sales for the sole purpose of fundraising. But action isn’t all about money. This is about doing something for positive change. Big is relative, so dreams don’t have to be monumental. Creating a blog, an app, or even just something to spread awareness is more powerful, in my opinion, than money. I want my students to think outside the box and really generate social change through their ingenuity in art.

Susannah: What do you think of the idea of TEDxYouthDay being a global conversation taking place in over 40 countries within just a few days?

Maggie: I love the fact that this isn’t just a local conversation. All it takes is one drop in the pond to create a ripple effect, so just imagine if we have this huge pond, which we do, and several drops are happening all over the place. The ripple effect multiplies and becomes that much greater. And that’s really what’s happening right now, thanks to these conferences. All over, people are getting a message of putting dreams toward real action.

Susannah: With your work at Nightingale, it’s clear that you don’t believe age should be a determining factor in pursuing our dreams. How are you working to get over this barrier, this perception, of kids not being capable enough, and how can we work together to overcome it?

Maggie: That message is one upon which my entire class is based! You don’t have to be an adult to do something great, and you don’t need money from your parents either. Some of the most creative projects I’ve seen have come from kids in third world countries out of bare necessity, just like that windmill we were shown earlier today.

Using education to promote this idea is key, and the fact that we’re holding these TED conferences to help with this speaks miles. Today’s youth are tomorrow’s dreamers, so why wait?