The FAO Schwarz Fellow will work with youth, communities, and public schools connected to the Restored Spaces Initiative, which uses socially engaged public art practice as a platform for neighborhood change grounded in environmental justice.

In addition to achieving outcomes in the communities it engages, Restored Spaces has a significant influence on Mural Arts as a whole. At the vanguard of innovative public art practices, Restored Spaces incubates new and more authentic ways to place a community at the center of Mural Arts’ work, as well as modeling innovative approaches to building environmental awareness, action, and activism. The Fellow will be a key player in Restored Spaces’ role as a think tank at Mural Arts by bringing new ideas, expertise, and experience to the team.

The Fellow’s responsibilities will be split: 50 percent direct service, 50 percent project management.

DIRECT SERVICE

The FAO Schwarz Fellow’s direct service work will focus on innovative forms of community outreach and public education through arts and design-based practices—techniques that have been honed by Mural Arts over three decades of working with Philadelphia youth. The Fellow will work with Trash Academy, a youth-led Restored Spaces project that utilizes art-based social practices to engage, educate, and shift citizen perspectives regarding consumption and waste-related issues. This work will inform the implementation of new public art and environmental projects at schools and in public spaces.

The Fellow will:

Train and support youth participants in Trash Academy.

Oversee and guide youth and community collaboration efforts at other Restored Spaces sites.

Learn and apply game design as an entry point for environmental education in Philadelphia neighborhoods.

Work with project stakeholders to design and apply curricula for youth and community engagement.

PROJECT WORK

The FAO Schwarz Fellow’s project work will include the management of Restored Spaces public art and environmental interventions. 

The Fellow may also:

Conduct outreach and organize community meetings.

Design and implement environmental justice and art focused programming.

Conduct outreach and organize meetings.

Construct and implement consumption and litter related educational programs at schools.

Aid in mural and creative disruption project installations that focus on climate change issues.

Generate replication guides, trainings, and other resources for internal use and/or as an external resource.

REQUIREMENTS

Required skills: arts-based experience, environmental justice-related knowledge/experience, direct community/youth involvement.

Preferred skills:  research, writing, graphic design, community organizing, tracking and documenting project data, project management, graphic design.

HOW TO APPLY

Applicants must be college seniors at the time of application and be eligible to work in the United States for the duration of the two-year Fellowship. For more about what we are seeking, please see “What We’re Looking For.”

Please visit our website and Trash Academy’s website and send a resume and a cover letter to restoredspaces@muralarts.org by February 15, 2020 (11:59 pm EST)), expressing your interest in working at Mural Arts and your reasons for applying for the FAO Schwarz Fellowship. 

In your cover letter, please include your responses to the following questions:

Question 1: Please tell us how you learned about this opportunity and about your interest in the FAO Schwarz Fellowship. 

Question 2: Why are you interested in applying for the FAO Schwarz Fellowship position at this organization?

Question 3: What background and experiences would you bring to the direct service and special project work at this organization?

After carefully reviewing each application, we will interview promising candidates. We will select our Fellow by April 30th. Resumes and cover letters are also shared with the FAO Schwarz Fellowship. Thanks for your interest.