Inspiration

2020 OCEAN AWARENESS CONTEST THEME:
CLIMATE HOPE: TRANSFORMING CRISIS

This is a space for art, stories, and creative media that makes us ask questions, feel, understand, wonder, and reconnect. It is a platform for collective imagination and mobilization for a bluer planet. We encourage you to learn from and be moved by these sources of inspiration as you shape your own project for the Ocean Awareness Contest.

Getting Started

Questions to Guide Research & Spark Inspiration

How do human systems affect the ocean? How does the ocean affect life on land? How are ocean health and human health connected?
How does climate change impact the ocean and marine life?
How does the ocean play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change?
How will climate change impact your school, neighborhood, town, city, or state? What local solutions are already in motion? What solutions would you like to see created or put into action?
How large is your carbon footprint? How do your daily actions connect you to the ocean?
Who is responsible for climate change?
What is your personal definition of hope?
Why is being hopeful important when facing crises?
Who are your climate heroes?
What strategies do artists use to help us understand climate change as well as to move us to feel something about it?
How can we communicate stories about our ocean and the climate crisis that make an impact on others and inspire them to act?

Brainstorming Prompts

Uplift a success story of current climate action from your community, region, or around the world.
Imagine your hometown in 2050. How has the city adapted to climate change? How have you adapted?
What is the story you will tell your grandchildren about how we stopped the worst of the climate crisis?
Describe how we saved [species/habitat].
Create or describe an emerging or innovative technology that can help combat climate change.
Imagine the climate crisis from the point of view of a plant, animal, or ecosystem threatened by the climate crisis. What actions will humans take to save you?
Conduct an interview with or create a portrait of your climate hero.

Alumni Spotlight: Meet Youth Wavemakers

Meet Bow Seat alumni who use their creative practices as a tool for environmental activism.

Young People Making a Difference

See how young people like you are organizing and leading movements around the world to make the oceans healthier and their communities greener:

Climate Change Art

Art is a universal and powerful means of communication. Its many forms—writing, design, sculpture, photography, film, painting, music, and much more—can educate, inspire, and empower individuals, and ultimately unite people into taking positive action. To get your creative juices flowing, check out these artists whose work explores climate, oceans, and humans’ interconnection with the environment.

Visual Art

Interactive & Multimedia

Art by Past Contest Participants

Poetry

Bow Seat Student Poems

Earthrise

Rise

Bad Atmosphere

Global Warming

Dear Future Generations: Sorry

Dear Matafele Peinem

Remember

Darwin's Garden

Chanting the Water

Turbines

Until You Let Her Go

Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now

Anthropocene Blues

Flow

earth do what you will/forgive us

Prose

Bow Seat Student Prose

The Audit

It's Not Climate Change - It's Everything Change

An Anthology of Climate Fiction

Atlas with Shifting Edges

Life versus the Machine

Returning the Gift

365 Books to Start Your Climate Change Library

Film

Music

Resource Studio