In 1979, John Ahearn began to make plaster casts of the faces and shoulders of his friends and neighbors in the South Bronx. A founding member of Collaborative Projects, Inc. (Colab)—the New York artist group formed in 1977 to make art more accessible to the public—Ahearn often cast his subjects on the sidewalk and installed the finished busts along the walls of buildings in the neighborhood. Works such as Maria challenged the negative connotations that were then associated with the South Bronx and the people who lived there. Instead, these works commemorate the lives of everyday residents.