Enviro-Art Gallery Expansion
Year Initiated: 2017 | Year of Expansion: 2020-2021
The Problem
We are operating in a sometimes-hostile era of anti-science, anti-climate change politics. There needs to be a space and method for conveying local and global environmental degradation and injustice that is emotive, informative, and reflective to the point of engaging those who don’t always consider the environment in their everyday lives.
The Solution
The Enviro-Art Gallery is a showcase of student and professional artwork designed to highlight the beauty and struggles of nature. It presents art as a call to action, working to connect people to places, ecosystems, and international experiences of nature through engaging visual dialogues.
Through the use of a variety of media and artistic styles, the gallery works to provide a relatable and easily absorbable method for environmental awareness and activism. The purpose is to promote actionability within communities by visually highlighting the importance of, aesthetic nature of, and anthropogenic threats to Mother Earth. This program addresses persistent and pervasive environmental misinformation today, giving local and global communities an opportunity to accurately and emotively engage with environmental issues through art and local experts.
Previous Success
Check out the Enviro-Art Gallery 2021 on social media for updates on this year's showcase!
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2017 James River High School: Consisted of 100+ pieces submitted from two high schools, a presentation from a professor from the University of Richmond on the role of environmentalism as a peacebuilding tool, and 90+ attendees who said they left the event truly feeling something for nature. Major outcomes include the increase in environmental programming and commitment after the completion of the showcase in the form of recycling programs, a composting program, and parking lot and roof-top gardens.
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2018 Duke University: Though smaller, this showcase presented 50+ undergraduate, graduate, and professional works to 100+ people on Abele residential quad, promoting environmental awareness at Duke University on April 22nd.
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2019 Duke University: Consisted of a month-long exhibit of 50+ pieces in Duke’s Rubenstein Arts Center in April, a large reception in Duke’s Rubenstein Arts Center Lounge, and a “Ruby Friday” Talk on the role of art as an environmental call to action. The relationship between the environment and the arts truly gained traction at Duke after this.
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2020 Duke and Bond University: Prior to COVID-19, students and community members at Duke picked up the Enviro-Art Gallery for an additional month-long showcase on Duke’s campus. An Enviro-Art Gallery showcase was also set to take place at Bond University, Gold Coast, receiving substantial faculty and community support. Although the showcase has been postponed for this larger global endeavor, students and environmental innovation organizations there have agreed to keep the environmental art movement going in that community through an annual Enviro-Art Gallery showcase and programming.
2020-2021 Expansion
Although in the past the gallery has been a physical showcase, this year it will be a virtual gallery space that brings together the artwork of people in all participating localities. We are hoping to not only include artwork, but also process videos from local artists, testimonial videos from environmentalists and environmental artists, and other such supplemental content that transforms our virtual gallery space from a series of photographers and into a full blown interactive showcase.
We also want to create an Eco-Arts month series of speakers sessions, each institutional partner in the different countries hosting a panel, discussion, talk, etc, that can be streamed live, recorded, and hosted on our gallery site.
This Enviro-Art Gallery Expansion Project is designed as a full force collaborative piece, a unifying gallery that brings people around the world together in discussion of and in visualization of environmental issues, solutions, and experiences.
2020-2021 Timeline
September-October - Recruitment and ideation. We will take this time to bring in partners from institutions in the U.S., Australia, and China, to introduce them to the gallery and see if they'd be interested in implementation in their locality. We will also work out details such as basic designs and color schemes, primary contacts and collaborators, and overarching plans for the April event.
November-December - Workshopping and initial planning. We will take this time to get together as a group, get to know the partners around the world and begin discussing as a whole the plan for the gallery. This will also include initial outreach to local artists, guest speakers, and other such collaborators to begin the process for setting up the April event. We would like this program to be as cohesive as possible so bringing everyone together either as a whole or with the people in their region as much as possible will ensure everyone everywhere is on the same page for the program.
January-March - Implementation. This will be the finalizing stage. There are a lot of people and a lot of moving parts on the project so we will be taking the next few months to actually set up the virtual gallery space, to finalize the speaker sessions, schedule, and begin advertising widely. We will take this time to make sure everything is cohesive and our April event runs continuously and smoothly.
April - IT'S SHOW TIME!!
Cameron Oglesby
Founder and U.S. Curator
Global Eco-Arts Hub Co-Founder
Cameron is a Duke senior studying environmental science and policy and journalism. She's a long time ecologist, advocate, and artist, passionate about engaging people in environment/environmental justice issues through multi-media means.
She founded the Enviro-Art Gallery her senior year of high school to fill the gap she saw when trying to discuss environmental degradation, the beauty of nature, or the cultural/spiritual connection between people and planet. She is also a co-founder of the Eco-Arts Hub, a website of resources for Enviro-Art Gallery curation that was conceived during her time in Queensland, Australia.
Raga Sodum
Australia Curator
Global Eco-Arts Hub Co-Founder
Raga is an undergrad studying Medicine at Bond University on the Gold Coast, QLD. She joined the Enviro-Art Gallery team in early 2020 and helped co-found and pitch the Eco-Arts Hub concept.
"I believe that Art has the capability to express feelings which words simply cannot. Not only our planet's beauty, but also it's problems need to be expressed, and I know we can do exactly that together in this Hub."
Kendall Jefferys
U.S. Curator