Unfair Trials: Artists Come Together to Support Youth-Based Non-Profit

In New York City, kids as young as 16 and 17 are sentenced in jail as adults. Though these teens may not be developmentally aware of the consequences of their decisions they are treated as such, with the door locked and the key thrown away. The two women pictured above joined forces with a dream of changing the way youths in this age bracket are judged by creating the Young New York Organization. With this program, 15 of these kids will be given the chance to create art as an alternative means of sentencing, in some cases with the potential to wipe their record after the workshop’s completion.

Curator Natalie Trainor and artist LNY, who happens to be teaching a YNY workshop, assembled a one night benefit at White Box this past week to help fund this creative outlet. The coupling of a street artist and fine art curator provided for a well selected mix of artists. Architects, photographers, spray painters, and wheatpasters all mingled under one roof for a sell out show to help change a part of the New York Criminal Justice System.

Text and Photo: Rhiannon Platt