Programs

Connections to Nature: Looking Inside, Going Outside

Message from Founder and President Linda Cabot

This year’s Contest theme, Connections to Nature: Looking Inside, Going Outside, generated over six thousand creative works from a hundred different countries about how we personally connect to nature. Expressing our relationship with nature through creativity builds a deeper connection to our natural world and strengthens our sense of place and belonging. It is this care, admiration, and connection to nature that often inspires the action needed to protect our environment and, consequently, ourselves.

All of you have already helped create a significant impact: our Bow Seat Contest participants and large community demonstrate a powerful image of youth environmental activism. Artivism is the practice of using art as a form of activism to promote social, environmental, and political change. Cultural activism embraces shared and universal experiences, enabling widespread seeds of change. Being in and contributing to community activism matters, and now more than ever, we need each other.