Three Little Birds by Harbor Middle School and Groundswell

Painted: June 2024

About the Mural: At Harbor Middle School in Red Hook, Brooklyn, students learn about environmental issues while experiencing them firsthand—from the extra heat created by the neighborhood’s lack of tree cover, to the air pollution wafting from the nearby highway. They’re also encouraged to do something about it: This mural, painted on the side of a shipping container in the schoolyard, is part of a years-long project to create an "environmental justice field station" to address issues in the local community.

Students from the school’s “Green Team” club worked with Groundswell—a community mural organization—to plan the design for the container, which features three colorful warblers that migrate through New York. The birds' surroundings highlight how local ecology is woven together, from the blue waves lapping near buildings on the shore to the circular arrows symbolizing cycles of matter and energy. “We wanted it to show the interconnectedness of the natural or native ecosystem with the human, highly built environment that we have in Red Hook,” says Andy Zimmermann, a seventh grade teacher at the school. 

During a community painting day in June, dozens of students, teachers, parents, and neighbors came together to bring the design to life. “It’s pretty exciting that there’s so much meaning behind it, and so many hands involved,” says sixth grade teacher Lynn Shon. Now that the mural is done, Shon says the students will continue to work on a plan for adapting the container to its future use. Scale models built by sixth grade students illustrate proposals to outfit it with features such as a green roof, air quality monitors, and solar panels (a blank space in the mural leaves room for a window). And seventh grade students developed concepts for environmental and health justice nonprofits that could one day function from inside it.

As the mural’s design underlines, people are inseparable from our natural surroundings—so by helping the environment, we’re also helping ourselves, points out artist Julia Cocuzza, who worked with students to design and complete the mural. “If it’s good for nature, it’s good for us, right?” Cocuzza says. “We can connect it to our own lives.”

About the Birds: During a school outing to look for birds and wildlife on Governor’s Island, students spotted a Yellow Warbler, a bright, colorful bird with a sweet song. That moment became “the big highlight of our day,” Zimmermann says, and later on, the species was the group's first pick to include in the mural design. Students also chose two other warblers whose migration journeys bring them through the area: the Blackburnian Warbler, with its fiery and intricate patterns, and the Black-throated Blue Warbler, with its rich blocks of color.

Shon says it’s been inspiring to watch students become more attuned to the birdlife all around them. “The story of birds, and how they migrate thousands of miles, is really incredible,” she says. “And I think for the first time, our kids are really thinking about that. We really take these birds for granted.” 

However, these species’ futures are not a given: All three warblers are threatened by climate change, according to Audubon's Survival by Degrees report. In particular, the Blackburnian Warbler and Black-throated Blue warbler stand to lose upwards of 98% of their current summer ranges if warming continues at its current rate. Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could cut those losses in half, helping to ensure the birds could still find favorable breeding habitat in the United States and broad swaths of Canada.

About the Artist: Julia Cocuzza is a painter, muralist, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. Born and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania, she studied illustration at Syracuse University and received her MFA from Brooklyn College. She specializes in creating murals that engage communities in the process. “For me, bringing art directly to the people has always been the most important thing,” Cocuzza says. Working with different organizations like Groundswell, Sing for Hope, and ArtBridge, she’s created murals with everyone from incarcerated youth at Riker’s Island to adults recovering from mental health concerns. 

For the Harbor Middle School mural, students were involved every step of the way, from choosing the message of the mural to mixing paint into the right colors. Middle schoolers spent multiple after-school sessions working with Cocuzza to brainstorm themes and create visuals. Much of their artwork was directly translated into the final product, including the striking Yellow Warbler, which came from a drawing by a seventh grader named Shamya, and the abstract background, which was based on the group testing out a Japanese art style called notan. 

Cocuzza sees this kind of public art as a powerful tool for building community, and an ancient one—just look at the cave paintings that make up some of our earliest artworks. Anyone who comes across a mural in their neighborhood can appreciate its uplifting effects, she says: “It gives you acknowledgement that somebody cared enough to create this thing.” And for those who get involved with the process, the impacts go even deeper. “They really take ownership of it,” Cocuzza says. “They’re going to feel like, ‘Yeah, that’s my mural.’"