To create “You Smoke We All Smoke” and “Attack of the Second-Hand Smoke”, students from IS 318 explored smoking as a public health issue in partnership with Woodhull Asthma Awareness Program and Brooklyn Smoke-Free Partnership. First, the young artists engaged in workshops with their community partners to educate themselves about the dangers of first-hand, second-hand, and third-hand smoking and the relationship between smoking and asthma. Then they explored how visual art has been used throughout the 20th and 21st centuries as the battleground between anti-smoking initiatives and cigarette advertising campaigns. Equipped with an understanding of the health consequences and social history of smoking, as well as their artistic communication skills, the artists developed educational and provocative posters to promote smoke-free living. The artists drew from imagery used in vintage public health ads and Work Projects Administration posters while riffing off of cigarette ads. Their posters now hang in the lobbies of housing developments throughout the city to promote smoke-free living.
