A Vision of Grace

Where community becomes family, and art becomes a path to love and liberation.

A Vision of Grace is a powerful short documentary born from a collaboration between the upEND Movement and Montrose Grace Place. The film follows Youth Voices Empowered (YVE), a vibrant youth-led advocacy initiative amplifying the voices of young people experiencing housing insecurity in Houston.

Through an intimate lens, A Vision of Grace captures a series of art workshops led by conceptual artist Tay Butler in partnership with the upEND team. In these workshops, youth explore storytelling, memory, and identity while creating personal Zines to showcase and sell at Houston’s Zine Fest.

But this documentary is more than an art project—it’s a deeply human portrait of resilience and radical care. Through candid interviews, the youth share their lived experiences with houselessness and family separation while celebrating the joy and healing they’ve found in community. Montrose Grace Place emerges as a central character in the film—a sanctuary offering safety, belonging, and the possibility of chosen family.

A Vision of Grace is a tribute to what it means to live abolition now. It highlights the urgent need to replace systems of punishment and separation with community-rooted care, showing what becomes possible when young people are seen, heard, and held in love.

The Vision of Grace film poster features one of its subjects smiling and covering her mouth. She is wearing a black fur hat and has long nails.