Bow Seat Student Art Showcased at the Peabody Essex Museum!
May 5, 2022

Featured image: ‘Earth Collaption’ by Jada Mensah

Since 2011, Bow Seat has created space for young people to express themselves and use their creativity to speak up for the environment. Uplifting student voices is a core tenet of Bow Seat’s mission. Through our online Gallery, social media, and exhibitions in galleries and museums, we showcase many of our student works to share their talent and further their impact.

In April 2022, Bow Seat launched one of our most exciting museum exhibitions to date – showing nine original student pieces at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts. PEM – one of the oldest continuously operating museums in the United States – merges art, history, and culture to “create experiences that transform people’s lives by broadening their perspectives, attitudes, and knowledge of themselves and the wider world.”

Front entrance of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

The Peabody Essex Museum (photo by Cathypem, CC BY-SA 3.0)

As a part of this mission, PEM has launched the Climate + Environment initiative to investigate our relationship with the natural world. Through new exhibitions focusing on the environment, PEM is exploring various aspects of the worldwide climate crisis, starting conversations, and changing perspectives.

The Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center, on the first floor of PEM, is hosting Climate Action: Inspiring Change, to focus on local, New England issues. This exhibit features nine students who participated in Bow Seat’s 2020 Ocean Awareness Contest: Climate Hope, alongside 20 other New England-based artists. Climate Action highlights known solutions to the underlying causes of climate change to dispel feelings of hopelessness and spark action.

The student pieces featured in the exhibit are:

Climate Action is now open at the Peabody Essex Museum until June 25, 2023. Thank you to the student artists who are joining this initiative. With your voices and art, we are paving the way to a more sustainable future.


Alongside Climate Action, there are three other exhibits at the Peabody Essex Museum as part of their Climate + Environment initiative.

From left to right: ‘The Blue Trees,’ ‘Down to the Bone,’ ‘the Great Animal Orchestra’

The Blue Trees by Konstantin Dimopoulos uses biologically-safe blue paint to cover the trees surrounding the Museum. By using an unnatural color, Dimopoulos catches eyes to focus attention on the importance of trees and the damage of deforestation. Over time, the blue will wash away, returning the trees to their natural state.

Down to the Bone by photographer Stephen Gorman and cartoonist Edward Koren pairs Gorman’s photographs of destitute polar bears in northern Alaska with Koren’s scared-looking creatures “occupy[ing] landscapes in which human culture has been fragmented and reduced to ruins.”

The Great Animal Orchestra by Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists immerses visitors in soundscapes of various ecosystems – from the rainforests to the oceans. Visual representations of the animal sounds showcase how rich and diverse these ecosystems are.

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Bow Seat Student Art Showcased at the Peabody Essex Museum!

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