Arts for the Planet

Nick Kleese

University of Minnesota

Taylor Goetsch

Olivia Gibson

Breanna Hickmott

Juliana Olave

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/cle.v1i1.5331

Keywords: visual art, student activism, ecocentrism, Anthropocene, loons, fast fashion


Abstract

In 2022, the Center for Climate Literacy launched the first iteration of its Arts for the Planet Visual Media Contest. Young artists currently enrolled at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design were invited to submit visual media that explored some tenant of climate literacy: values, attitudes, and behavioral change necessary to safeguard the Earth’s integrity in the present and for future generations. Taylor, the contest’s overall winner, illustrated E is for Ecocentrism, which depicts in both text and image what it might mean to decenter our human selves in our greater “web of weaving.” Honorable mentions included Olivia, who reimagines classic film tropes for the Anthropocene in ZOOM OUT; Breanna, whose work They Will Fade is a call to consider how human activity threatens the Minnesota state bird, the loon; and Juliana, in RRR, reveals fast fashion’s impact on one of the planet’s most incredible biomes, the Atacama Desert.