League Prize winner
Rachel G. Barnard of Young New Yorkers
The League Prize is an annual competition that has been organized by The Architectural League since 1981. Open to designers ten years or less out of school, it draws entrants from around North America.
Rachel G. Barnard of Young New Yorkers won a 2019 award.
Rachel G. Barnard founded Young New Yorkers (YNY) in 2012 as a restorative justice project providing art programs to 16- and 17-year-olds prosecuted as adults by the New York state criminal justice system. By participating in court-mandated art programs, these young people (the program now includes participants up to the age of 25) are able to avoid spending time in jail, incurring other adult criminal justice sanctions, or having a lifelong criminal record. Since its inception, over 1,000 participants have successfully graduated from the program.
Each program culminates in a large-scale exhibition, designed by YNY participants, that takes place in the criminal justice system’s institutional spaces. Through a playful and almost tacky aesthetics, the exhibition disrupts these spaces and creates an opportunity for criminal legal professionals to see these young people beyond their rap sheets.
Barnard received a BArch from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and an MS in advanced architectural design from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.
Learn more:
- “Young New Yorkers: Restorative Justice Through Public Art” by Rachel Barnard, Urban Omnibus, Jul 17, 2013
- Interview, Forbes, Apr 22, 2016
- Profile, Topical Cream, January 18, 2019
