Well, it’s Earth Week, and BYTE has some exciting news. As of this Saturday April 26, photographs of climate change taken by Old Crow and Inuvik youth will hang on the walls of a gallery in downtown Vancouver. That means a wide southern audience will gain a glimpse into life in the Arctic and the effects of climate change on the area. We’re so proud of our youth photographers, we might just burst!
Whitehorse-based photographer Jesse Whitehead shows Tristin from Inuvik how to use a digital SLR camera
In October 2013, the BYTE crew travelled to Old Crow and Inuvik to ask local youth to help us understand how climate change is affecting the Arctic by taking photographs of the changes happening in their environment. With their photographs, we created This Is Our Arctic, a youth photography exhibit on climate change that exhibited this January at the Yukon Electrical Youth Gallery in Whitehorse for almost a month. Then we shipped the photographs to Inuvik, where they took part in the community’s inaugural Arctic Image Festival. One of our Inuvik youth photographers, Alexa, won first-prize in the youth division for a photo she took during the BYTE workshop.
The exhibit has already been more successful than we ever could have hoped, and now it’s heading to Vancouver to make its debut south of 60°. On April 26th, This Is Our Arctic will be unveiled at the ArtStarts in Schools gallery in the heart of downtown Vancouver.
On April 26, 2014, the exhibit will be unveiled alongside another new exhibit called Timescapes: Local connections and Natural Indicators of Time, which showcases how BC young people understand how time is marked in the natural world. For the opening, ArtStarts is offering an introduction by ArtStarts Gallery curator Juliana Bedoya, as well as visits from BC visual artist Kiki van der Heiden and storyteller Naomi Steinberg. Cake will be served! BYTE’s Communications Officer Kara Johancsik will also attend to deliver a talk on BYTE’s project in Old Crow and Inuvik. The opening promises to draw a large audience, and we’re excited to show off the amazing photographs taken by Old Crow and Inuvik youth and to draw attention to the wider issue of climate change in the Arctic. Find out more about the galleries here.
ArtStarts in Schools is the first gallery in Canada to be completely devoted to young people’s art. It’s located at 808 Richards Street in downtown Vancouver and admission is free, so if you’re visiting Vancouver anytime between April 26 and August 30, 2014, pay them a visit to see This Is Our Arctic on display in the big city!
If you can’t make it to Vancouver, check out this virtual exhibit of This Is Our Arctic!
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