Positivity Portals: An Altered Book Project

Developed and led by multidisciplinary visual artist Caryn T. Davis in partnership with the Staten Island Urban Center (SIUC), this project brought together participants from the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) to create “altered books”—existing books transformed through collage, folding, paper quilling, and mixed-media design.

Throughout “Positivity Portals” doorways are cut into the pages of the altered book, opening to reveal photographs from SIUC’s history of bold, effective demonstrations for local climate justice. Through this process, youth artists connected their own creative expression to the movement for environmental and social change on Staten Island.

The Positivity Portals process blends visual artistry with community engagement:

Recycling & Reimagining: Discarded books and repurposed materials gain new life as dynamic artworks.

Climate Justice: Each book contains imagery from real SIUC campaigns for environmental justice, grounding the art in lived activism.

Hands-On Creativity: Techniques like collage, paper quilling, painting, and sculptural folding bring depth and movement to every page.

Artists: Ethan Burns, Ashley Pineda Canales, Clarence Campbell, Katherine Contreras, Andrew Ellis, Kristal Espinosa, Serenity Guzman, Arianna Landrum, Jahmai Mitchell , Aiden Morton, Sokhna Ndiaye, Paul Olszewski, Ana Rosendo, Jori Ruiz, Lailonnye Roper, Mireya Vidal

Featuring: Laura Brown, Quilling Workshop Leader

This project is funded by a DCLA Art Fund Grant from Staten Island Arts, with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.