We Are the Builders. Our City. Our Time. Our Blueprint.
A recap of 2026's Transform DC mural project, presented in partnership with DCPS Arts and the National Building Museum.
Four-plus years ago, I stepped into a partnership with DCPS Arts and the National Building Museum with one question in mind: what happens when we hand young people a wall and trust them to tell the truth on it?
This year's Transform DC answered that question again, and it never gets old.
What's Transform DC?
Transform DC is a high school Cornerstone unit built around collaborative mural making and public art. It's not a one-off workshop it's a process. Students spend weeks learning to see their neighborhoods differently, to translate community values and lived experience into imagery, and to make decisions together about what deserves to live permanently on a wall. By the time the paint goes up, every mark on that surface has been argued over, agreed on, and earned.
I've had the privilege of managing this project for over four years now, and every cohort brings something I didn't expect. That's the part I keep coming back for.
2026's Theme: We Are the Builders
This cycle's theme — We Are the Builders: Our City. Our Time. Our Blueprint — asked students to think of themselves the way the National Building Museum itself does: as architects of what comes next. The theme was chosen to echo an exhibit currently on view at the museum, so the students weren't just making art alongside the museum's walls, they were in conversation with them.
That's the whole premise of my practice — that art isn't decoration, it's a tool. Transform DC is that belief put directly into the hands of the next generation.
Four-Plus Years In
Managing Transform DC for this long has taught me as much as it's taught the students. I've watched young artists become more articulate about their own communities. I've watched murals outlast the school years of the kids who painted them, becoming landmarks for people who never met the students at all. That's the kind of legacy public art is supposed to leave, not a signature, but a shift in how a block feels to walk down.
In Partnership With
