Today’s find takes us to the corner of Houston St & Bowery aka the former Deitch Project Wall. The story of the Deitch Wall begins in 2008 when Jeffrey Deitch teamed up with Goldman Properties - a real estate agency - to commission quarterly work on the wall. Since then the wall has seen murals by the likes of the Keith Haring Foundation, Os Gemeos, Shepard Fairey, and Barry McGee. Once Deitch took off for Los Angeles in 2010 the wall became entirely managed by Goldman Properties (although the wall is managed by Meghan Coleman, former Deitch director). Goldman Properties has kept the wall alive with recent works by Kenny Scharf and now Parisian street artist JR. Now the interesting fact about the photo mural on the Goldman Wall is that it is part of a public art project itself! JR is the 2011 TED Prize winner and with the $100,000 prize the artist has decided to start the Inside Out project. The project challenges the public to take black & white portraits of themselves and then exhibiting these photographs in public. These photographs are meant to tell the stories of individuals who usually go unheard in our global mainstream culture. On Goldman Wall we see the eyes of DJ Two Bears - a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota. As Two Bears puts it:

“People forget that we’re here as Native American people. This is a great chance for the community of Standing Rock to tell their story,”

 As of right now the project has had over 10,000 portraits uploaded. If you want to look at some of these portraits, or even participate yourself click here. In the sounds around the mural you’ll hear why New Yorkers loathe Houston St. Stay tuned for an announcement from me on a special initiative I’ll be taking on for the project this month!