In 2008, ArtsChange embarked on a yearlong investigation and art making commitment to explore the question “What is Environmental Justice in Richmond?” Debates of air and water quality, land use, and industrial pollution fueled the conversations in the city chambers, newspapers and on the streets. Missing from that dialogue, however, were the real responses from the greater Richmond community as they wrestled with the burden of enduring the consequences of poor environmental decision-making. As an arts organization that views health and wellbeing as fully intertwined with the social, economic and physical environment as vital topics for art making, ArtsChange called upon artist Milton Bowens to infuse that conversation with the voices of Richmond youth. In every community on the globe, there is an urgent need for local environmental stewardship and creative problem solving by the next generation. For Richmond youth, overwhelmed with immediate concerns such as street violence and school failure, it was vital to create a program that could address these concerns as well as engage youth in global issues. In addition, we felt that the dynamic art making process could cross barriers of culture, class and self-fulfilling prophesy, giving young people a new sense of possibility and inspiration both the betterment of their community and their own creative growth.


Bowens’ shared commitment to youth, community and social transformation through the arts, drove the collaboration from December 2008 through June 2009. A bi-weekly art and environmental justice workshop at the RYSE youth center in Richmond with students from various Richmond schools and youth programs employed hands on art making to dissect layered concepts of environmental justice; promote understanding, and stewardship of local resources and activism among Richmond youth; and illuminate the process of social analysis and public presentation for the group. The environmental curriculum of Ma’at Youth Academy laid the foundation for the teaching and learning of complex science-based approaches to environmental justice. Community environmental activists including experts such as Andrés Soto of West County HEAL Collaborative at Neighborhood House of North Richmond additionally supported the classroom sessions. The youth visited a range of community settings including Richmond’s toxic sites and open spaces, with the intent of expanding the students’ and artists’ concepts of exhibition possibilities.


During this time, Milton listened intently to the youth, to the presentations by environmental activists visiting his classroom and conducted his own research in order to create a new body of artwork. An intergenerational artistic exchange was occurring in the classroom. Milton was learning from his students as they learned from him. The results of their efforts are the works represented in this catalogue.


Upon conclusion of Bowens’ residency, ArtsChange created two exhibitions at the gallery space at the Richmond Health Center and the RYSE youth center to bring an environmental dialogue into the public health and youth forum and to create imagery that could stimulate questions and answers. The exhibitions introduced art theory and application, environmental justice information, social analysis and engagement with multi-media art making as seen through the eyes of Richmond youth to a segment of the community that would not frequent museums or galleries. 7000 people who are concerned about their health visit the center monthly and 375 youth members participate at RYSE. The result is a body of work that transforms permanently the next generation’s understanding of environmental justice. For them, the art making process represents an opportunity to place themselves in the center of the formulation of a world they will inherit. With this growing sense of agency their readings of environmental crises move beyond political contingency to deliberate artistic interventions that include self in community, and community in world as the primary source for hope in the process of global rehabilitation.


Tomás Riley and Rosa Valdez
Co-Executive Directors, ArtsChange


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