Showcasing Creative Youth Voices in Conservation
February 2, 2022

Every year, youth from around the world create incredible artwork for our Ocean Awareness Contest—pieces too awe-inspiring and important to keep to ourselves. That’s why a key part of our programming is expanding the reach of student work through our online Gallery, social media, publications, exhibitions, and film screenings.

This provides a special opportunity to showcase teens’ individual skills, while also demonstrating the strength of their collective voices. We offer students a platform to tell their stories and share multiple viewpoints about the alarming environmental reality in which they are growing up. In turn, their artwork raises awareness of critical issues among wider audiences. The arts help transform concepts that are often met with apathy, disbelief, or resistance into a relevant, empathetic experience that taps into emotions and builds a collective consciousness.

“The exhibit was beautiful and thought-provoking, showing a generation who knows that their world needs saving. Your work is beautiful and necessary. Artists are not powerless; artists inspire change.”  Visitor at the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s “Youth Voice for the Ocean” exhibit, currently on view

Thanks to a new $2,500 grant from the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, through its 2022 Cultural Investment Portfolio Program, Bow Seat will be able to expand our exhibition initiative in Massachusetts this year. Upcoming events include:

  • The American Repertory Theater’s production of “Ocean Filibuster” (February 24-March 13, 2022), an epic showdown between Senate leader Mr. Majority and the Ocean itself;
  • The Peabody Essex Museum’s “Climate Action: Inspiring Change” exhibition (April 2, 2022 to July 30, 2023), about the underlying issues of and solutions to climate change.

Contact us if you’re interested in using Bow Seat’s global archive of visual art, short films, poetry, and other creative content to educate your community about environmental issues and to inspire them to take action.

Bow Seat student art displayed at the Huntsman Marine Science Centre’s Art Gallery space in the Fundy Discovery Aquarium (St. Andrews, Canada)

Featured image (at top): Bow Seat student artwork was exhibited at the American Repertory Theater’s December 2021 production of “WILD: A Musical Becoming,” about a mother confronting what it means for her family and community to survive in a world facing mass extinction

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Showcasing Creative Youth Voices in Conservation

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