This local art is addressing a global crisis

• Art about UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Project runs until March 10
• Galleries are in 4 locations across Kelowna

Local artists are sharing their visions for a more sustainable planet with art being featured in a variety of mini galleries throughout Kelowna.

Arts for Social Change is an event put on by Global Citizens Events, an annual initiative promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals with a focus on celebrating the impacts and efforts of Okanagan citizens.

“We learned that the best way to promote the importance of sustainability is through art,” Myrna Kalmakoff, Coordinator of the Arts for Social Change Project told Kelowna10. “We approached the City of Kelowna, and they were happy to support us in our idea of putting mini exhibits around the city.”

Currently there are four locations to view art for the project: Okanagan Regional Library in Rutland and Downtown Kelowna, Metro Community, and Habitat for Humanity REStore.

Local artwork is displayed at each area which includes a variety of pieces related to different aspects of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, ranging from zero hunger, to affordable energy, and life on land.

The galleries feature work from artists of different backgrounds, ages, and skill levels. Various mediums are used in the works such as painting, photography, sculptures, and more.

“We’d really like to thank our artists… We couldn’t have done it without them,” Kalmakoff said. “It’s just been a fabulous project and it’s wonderful to see sustainable development expressed so beautifully.”

One of the artists, Nancy A. Luis, creates intricate dreamcatchers of animals. Her work for the project, called Spirit of the Bear, is displayed at Metro Community.

“My art is a reflection of the environment and how quickly it’s disappearing,” Luis said. “I write stories through the animals’ perspective of living through a clear cut, or the ice caps that are melting.”

Within the grizzly bear dreamcatcher, Luis incorporated a variety of environmental aspects such as mountains and a sunset. The paws of the grizzly represent the medicine wheel: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

“If you envision a wheel rolling and one of those areas is not well, the wheel will go flat,” she explained.

“We can think of that as the environments medicine wheel. When you start taking one thing away, the whole thing deteriorates and collapses.”

For Luis, her art is important in spreading the word of sustainability within the environment, as each piece has a story behind it.

“We need to start respecting our Mother Earth and looking after her and caring for the forests and all ecological systems.”

Another artist, Pippa Dean-Veerman, focuses on the photographic medium to share her vision of taking care of the climate. Her environmental pieces, Ephemeral Plea 1 and Ephemeral Plea 2, located on the second floor in the downtown library, are multiple exposure photographs.

“The planet is fragile and delicate, sublimely beautiful, and filled with light,” she said. “It is really important that we come to recognize the fragility and the significance of the planet we live in.”

Dean-Veerman said events such as Arts for Social Change help bring collective minds together to speak about important global issues such as sustainability.

She hopes to see more collaboration between groups and would like municipalities to raise the importance of the climate through policy changes.

“I think we have to let go of our egos as humans and start caring for the earth,” she explained.

“There’s no way we could have clean air, clean water, clean soil, good food, if it’s all been decimated and polluted.”

Arts for Social Change runs until March 10.