If you go online to find a picture, you will more than likely come across a photo with the genetic "shutterstock" watermark strewn across it. Here you are, looking for a wallpaper or a picture for a slide of a presentation, and they want you to buy it. Not only that, but they want you to cough up some major funds.... FOR A BUNCH OF PIXELS ON A SCREEN!!! For 15 dollars you can have 1 picture! My lunch costs a fraction of that. This is not fair. It would be one thing if it were something the artist painted or drew or did in illustrator, but it's not. They are charging you to look at the world... through a screen... This is flawed; people should be able to see the world, for the world is priceless. The world is owned by no one. For my project I am going to laser cut out giant sheets of the "shutterstock" watermark and putting them up over Cambridge.
My mission was to show how by slapping up different watermarks around Cambridge. My project started as a clear plexiglass sheet with the Shutterstock watermark etched onto it. I hung it up in the photo booth. Second I made a font. In the past I had created a style but never designed a full alphabet. I showed this to Shilo and she encouraged me to finish the font and create stencils for it. I then used this to create a stencil that said "Watermark" (my project name) on it.

We explored street art the first week of this studio. We wanted to make something political and decided to make posters we would put up with wheat paste. Our focus was on Latinos and problems they face. We eventually also concentrated on Trump's hate and his racism and prejudice towards Latinos.  We made initial sketches and also used Photoshop to design our posters. We landed on the name "Mistaken" because it expressed the aspect of all of Trump's lies and false misconceptions towards Latinos. We made a lot of iterations and made a lot of changes through the whole project until we got the design we wanted. 

We went around the neighborhood and put up our posters with wheat paste. We went to Graffiti Alley but also just random places in the public space. We incorporated a Trump quote criticizing Latinos, "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're bringing rapists". We also put the hashtag "LatinosTrumphate" on each poster too for the word play on Trump. We wanted to expose Trump's hate. 

We explored street art the first week of this studio. We wanted to make something political and decided to make posters we would put up with wheat paste. Our focus was on Latinos and problems they face. We eventually also concentrated on Trump's hate and his racism and prejudice towards Latinos.  We made initial sketches and also used Photoshop to design our posters. We landed on the name "Mistaken" because it expressed the aspect of all of Trump's lies and false misconceptions towards Latinos. We made a lot of iterations and made a lot of changes through the whole project until we got the design we wanted. 

We went around the neighborhood and put up our posters with wheat paste. We went to Graffiti Alley but also just random places in the public space. We incorporated a Trump quote criticizing Latinos, "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're bringing rapists". We also put the hashtag "LatinosTrumphate" on each poster too for the word play on Trump. We wanted to expose Trump's hate. 

What makes us feel like we belong? Some would say respect from their family for making the decision to be a musician and pursue their dreams; for others, finding acceptance in a new place when they've been displaced from their home and transplanted elsewhere in a foreign land; for some, finding aconfidant with whom they can share their most personal secrets. A sense of belonging goes beyond just a desire; it's a basic human need that drives us.

The Belonging mural was created as part of the Art in Public Space studio at NuVu lead by Artist Shilo Shiv Suleman. Centered at the heart of Central Square in Cambridge, MA, the mural is a participatory art piece created by NuVu students and residents of Cambridge that shares the diversity of the city and its people. 

Woven between the transient populations of university youth, migrant communities, cantabrigian locals and the ever imminent threat of gentrification, the river shown in the mural threads all of Boston’s diverse groups together. The mural wall sits at the threshold of Area 4 (now being renamed the Port Neighborhood), old Cambridge and MIT. The mural itself depicts a multi-racial person, with locally found flowers growing out of her chest. The Charles river weaves and snakes through her body and emerges into a 'port' of sorts. A port where one comes and docks, and is simultaneously welcoming, but also a checkpoint or threshold. In a place of so many intersections, the mural explores the question "What makes us feel like we Belong?".

Project Eden is an attempt to reclaim public spots as nature. When we first thought of the idea, we originally wanted to put up vines over ads to do so. We then decided it would be best to put paper cutouts all aroud the city. Along with this, we planned to use stencils and put up cardboard animals.

We first designed and cut three paper cutouts to put around the city. We then cutout a cardboard animal. We were happy with what we had done but decided that we did not have enough to make an impact.

In our projects second iteration we had many more paper cutouts and multiple cardboard animals. We still wanted more parts to the project and we thought more could be done to our animals.

Our projects third and final iteration consisted of around fifteen paper cutouts, rose stencils, and painted animals. We painted the rose in many places and hung the animals along with the paper cutouts with messages on them to take pictures and post to #projectedenart.

Project Eden is a public art project that strives to reclaim urbanized spots with nature.

Mural on Belonging
Across Boston and Cambridge, the ancient river charles etches it’s way through the landscape creating intersecting islands of people.

Woven between the transient populations of university youth, migrant communities, cantabrigian locals and the ever imminent threat of gentrification, the river gently threads all of Boston’s diverse groups together. At the threshold of Area 4 (now being renamed the Port Neighborhood), old Cambridge and all the universities is our wall. In a place of so many intersections, we want to explore the question "What makes us feel like we Belong?".

The mural itself will depict a multi-racial person, with locally found flowers growing out of her chest. The river weaves and snakes through her body and emerges into a 'port' of sorts. A port where one comes and docks, and is simultaneously welcoming, but also a checkpoint or threshold of sorts. In each of the small plots on the map of the charles, we will have different members of the community "dock" and write one thing that makes them feel like they belong, to create a sense of ownership and community involvement.

We want to create something *with* the community that makes them feel central (in central square) to this intersection/port.

Symbolism
The mural includes many symbolic elements nestled within the piece. A few of these elements include:

1. Birds
There are a number of different birds specifically selected to represent a different culture and the birds sit on the river like a 'branch'. Each of the birds represents people from Cambridge who have come from different parts of the world, and settled on the branch of this river.

2. Multi-racial Figure
A lot of the murals in Cambridge tend to have a whole bunch of figures on them to represent the diversity of the neighborhood. To keep the simplicity but also have the diversity, we thought we would have one central figure who could look black, asian, or latino. Someone who felt like a mix of backgrounds yet wasn't too identifiable.

3. Text Topographies
The mural includes topographies made out of different languages (arabic, chinese, english, french) and uses texts as a way of showing diversity rather than representing this via faces.