The Labyrinth

A social intervention that took the form of a mural, performance event, and related public engagement on the grounds of Madison Park High School in Roxbury, MA, as part of a collaboration with the Design Studio for Social Intervention.

The Labyrinth was a collaboration with the Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) and the result of extensive design research with people deeply familiar with violence, the DS4SI staff, and a team of high school interns.

The event was an extension of the organization’s ongoing anti-violence campaign titled "Let’s Flip It" and centered around a performance on top of a thirty-foot painted labyrinth, an ancient tool for meditation. Five actors—representing a child, teenager, adult, elder, and officer—together reenacted the different stages of a fight. The event was supported by youth volunteers, representing local neighborhoods, who engaged passersby in dialogue and distributed materials related to the anti-violence campaign. Among the materials they shared were custom made buttons with quotations from community members who had participated in The Labyrinth project.