A recent IPCC report concluded that climate change amplifies the urban heat island effect, making cities hotter. Extreme heat causes more deaths than any other weather-related hazard, so cities around the world must adapt quickly to a warming climate. There is growing evidence that solving climate change will require educating and mobilizing the public to take action. However, many urban residents have had limited opportunities to share strategies to adapt to climate change, even though they are among the most vulnerable.
With support from YPS, the Yale Schools of the Environment, Art, and Architecture partnered with the City of New Haven to create two murals that raise awareness about climate change. Located on a building in Fair Haven and on the Goffe Street Armory in Dixwell, these murals bring beauty and attention to important community spaces through climate art and are helping to mitigate the effects of rising temperatures in cities by using cooling paint that reflects UV radiation.
Completed in 2024, the Goffe Street Armory mural stands as the largest in New Haven. The design was developed intentionally with community input and promotes awareness of the disproportionate impact of climate change on urban communities.
“When we were looking at where to situate and position this work, we looked at different heat maps of the city,” said New Haven-based artist Daniel Pizarro ’12 MFA, the project’s Climate Engagement Fellow who supported the lead artist in the first year and took on a leadership role in the project’s second year. “We were interested in how the mural could be positioned to invite people to start thinking about climate change in a very different way.”
The project team actively involved local students in exploring the connection between climate and art. Daniel organized a workshop at Hill Regional Career High School––which doesn’t have an arts program––during which students could doodle their responses to prompts about climate change.
“What I have always done in my career is bring the community into the design process and learn from them. I’m always reminded that those most impacted by whatever we’re engaging with pretty much tell you what the messaging should be,” said Daniel. “It’s really just about having a conversation, and I would ask questions like, ‘If climate change were an emoji, what would it look like?’ A lot of the depictions I saw come back to a very simple thing: people are just yearning to be outside.”
The grant additionally provided funding to establish a new Mural Apprenticeship Program, open to applications from anyone in New Haven.
“We had a city-wide call for artists and non-artists interested in learning about murals, and we selected four amazing people,” said Annie Lin, director of community engagement and strategies at the Yale School of Art. “This was a way they could work closely with someone who’s a very experienced public artist to discover what the process was like, work with the community, and turn many different inputs into something cohesive.”
Local artist Violeta Ware was a participant in the Mural Apprenticeship Program, where she received training in how to scale up art. It has directly benefited her career as an entrepreneur.
“This was my first major contract as an LLC doing such a large-scale mural, and to have that with a citation from the mayor from the City of New Haven was more than I could ask for from my apprentice experience,” said Violeta. “I was empowered in a way I had never been in the past.”
Being able to paint on a historic building was a rare opportunity that also highlighted ongoing efforts by local gardeners and other community members to develop the Goffe Street Armory, which has been closed for several years, into an asset for the neighborhood.
Last updated September 2025. Banner Photo: “ ‘Thermal Reflections’ Mural on the Goffe Street Armory” by Lucy Gellman.
