Located in the Crow Hill Community Garden, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, our art installation/fundraising platform focuses on bringing the Franklin Avenue community together to build something beautiful in memory of last summer’s Labor Day shootings. If launched, the installation will help raise awareness and funding for organizations throughout Crown Heights that are working to stop gun violence through the use of art and education programs for the youth.

We believe that the key to reducing gun violence in Brooklyn isn't a more extreme police force, but better art and education programs for the youth. In light of this, we've designed a canopy for the community garden made of disposable handcuffs. Each cuff will be individually sponsored by a participating member of the community, showing that they would rather Brooklyn use handcuffs for "Art, Not Arrests". All money raised through from the cuff sponsors will go directly toward art supplies and funding for art related anti-gun education initiatives. 

With the money raised on Kickstarter, we will purchase the materials we need for the project. The cuffs will then be made available for donation at participating businesses throughout Crown Heights. When someone sponsors a cuff, they will be given a packet of information to take home, as well as a cuff to personalize with a message and then leave in a collection box for pick up. Once a week, Ground Up Designers will collect the sponsored cuffs and add them to the installation.

Each cuff donated to the project will stand as a symbol of it’s donor’s support for positive community growth in Crown Heights — as more and more people donate their personal cuff to the project, a mesh will begin to grow in a lace like pattern. This mesh of cuffs, created of our neighbors’ joint community spirit, will become the canopy of the installation and a place for people of meet and organize throughout the summer. Architecturally, this canopy will be supported by a framework of fanned supporting legs that connect with hinges to a base. Just as the canopy is supported by the legs, the legs are completely dependent upon the canopy. This design was chosen to represent the relationships between the community organizations that support the community, and the individual members that support the organizations — one would not exist without the other.

Over the course of spring and summer, the canopy will flourish overhead as the garden’s plants flower and grow underneath.