INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE Common Home Arts Showcase

In 2022, the Earth Commons and its signature Common Home magazine welcomed the Georgetown community to express their feelings in a changing world, infuse environment and sustainability thinking throughout the university, and showcase the diversity of talents and perspectives in the community by submitting to the Common Home Arts Showcase.

Theme. The year’s inaugural theme, in conjunction with the institute’s collaborative “Voices on the Environment” series, was “Intergenerational Justice.” Top submissions link the theme of intergenerational justice with the environment through highly original, compelling artwork that conveys a strong message and sparks discussion about the environment and our relationship to it. “Intergenerational justice,” focuses on the duties that present generations have towards future ones. Climate change raises particularly pressing issues, such as which risks those living today are allowed to impose on future generations and how available natural resources can be used without threatening the sustainable functioning of the planet’s ecosystems.

The showcase featured 2 categories, the first, “Traditional,” includes graphic/studio arts, such as photographs, paintings, and digital drawings); the second, Freeform, includes written and multimedia arts, such as poems, videos, audio and filmed performances.

“A Black Future” by Dany Garza Mendoza (opposite)—Traditional Category Dany Garza Mendoza (MSFS Candidate ’23) earned second place in the “Traditional” category for her painting. “My piece is called ‘A Black Future,’ and it’s inspired by the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill in April of 2010,” writes the painter. “The artwork is meant as a warning: a visual representation of the devastating effects that humans have had on our planet, and the potential future if we continue with the status quo.

“Holding On” by Isabella Callagy (above) —Traditional Category Isabella Callagy (C’23), won first place in the “Traditional” category for her painting, “Holding On” (oil on canvas). The painter wrote of the piece; “it resonates with the dangers posed by climate change around us today, most notably water in our world. The piece places importance on hands trying to grasp onto water, only further connecting the impact of humans on climate change. The piece recognizes that climate change disrupts our world and dangerously affects humans in many parts of the world. This composition ties together art, healing, nature, and disaster. As human beings, it is our duty, especially my generation, to protect our planet and those around us; every small handful of clean water is vital to the survival of children, adults, and the older generation in our world. As a result, water is life.”

Planterbed Flowers

By Shelby Gresch, (C ‘22)

Second place, Freeform category

The planterbed flowers are bolder than I

Or perhaps just more naive

Undressing and sharing their color with the pale spring sky

Unafraid of another freeze

Unaware the seasons aren’t dependable anymore

Still

I smile down and greet them

Like the old friends that they are

Forsythia, daffodil, hyacinth

The chosen ones I learned from the nursery

And planted with my dad

I wonder where they grow wild

Anywhere?

The crocus and bluebell and buttercup

Are less ruly

They dance in the yard and play hide and seek

In the woods of Rock Creek Park

All delights.

The environmentalist to nihilist pipeline

Scares me. Better to not see

The magnolia bravely let her guard down

And rejoice until I remember

That urban trees live shorter lives

Than their wild relatives

It is risky to root for the underdog

I think gardens are beautiful

But will I feel that we lost if they’re all we have left?

Probably.

Perhaps the caged tree is a sacrifice

Perhaps the picture of resilience

Who am I to say

I don’t plan to bring children into such an uncertain world

But if I did

I would want to introduce them to the bluebells

So they could learn

To bloom on their own terms.

“The Humans Are Destroying Earth For Us” by Alexandra Bowman (righ)—Freeform Category. T he third place submission in the “Freeform” category is “The Humans Are Destroying Earth For Us” by Alexandra Bowman (C’22), digital media, 2021. An accomplished illustrator, Bowman often explores climate issues in her vivid digital cartoons. The illustration was originally created for Our Daily Planet.

“Female Faces of Change” by Victoria Smith (right)— Freeform Category. T he first place submission for the “Freeform” category is a collage by Victoria Smith (C’22) that features black and white photographs, pen and ink, and faux flowers. The collage depicts women who have been instrumental in environmental advocacy, including Eunice Newton Foote, a scientist and feminist whose research in the 1800s predicted the impact of greenhouse gases. “Foote was a pioneer in the environmental and women’s rights world,” Smith notes, “so I wanted to connect her to women in the present day as this journey is all connected with many different branches for people to take,” she wrote. “Many more women to come will be part of this intergenerational journey for climate justice.”

“The Self Through Time” by Peris Lopez (following pages)— Traditional Category. Peris Lopez (SFS ‘23) earned third place in the “Traditional” category with this diptych drawing created on paper soaked in water, dirt creosote, mesquite leaves, and other desert plants. Peris explained “this work begins with the paper, soaked in a mix of water, dirt, creosote, mesquite leaves, and other desert plants. After toning the paper with life grown from my home in Tucson, Arizona, my family’s home for at least the past 6 generations, I started drawing. The drawing was inspired by the eternal cycle of time, from death to rebirth. This diptych drawing brings human life and death together with the other lifeforms sustaining us to depict the beauty that exists in the patterns of our natural world. ”