Youth Imagine The Future Art Award Ceremony

Jemma Dooreleyers | Jan 09, 2025

Frontenac County was well-represented at the 'Youth Imagine the Future' Art Award Ceremony on December 15, 2024.

The joint art/literary festival and competition invited the students of the Limestone District School Board to create a short story or art piece that helped them to envision a brighter future for the environment.

Of the 200 entries that the judges saw, 12 students from Sydenham Highschool placed in the top rankings for both Junior and Senior art and writing awards. Students from Rosemary Pratt’s class at Granite Ridge Educational Centre won finalist awards for art and five of them won honourable mentions in the writing category. Loughborough Public School also had a grade 8 student who placed as a finalist for his short story.

For the second year in a row, Caitlin Ball, of Sydenham HS, won the highest prize at the festival - the Senior First Place prize, for her piece “Crowded Table”. Her triptych, which is a hand carved print depicting hands passing food around a table full of food from different cultures, was praised by the judges as being “University level art” and won her $500 from Kingston Community Credit Union along with some offers from the jury to buy her piece. In her artist statement she explains: “the point of this piece is to show a more grounded and homey version of fighting climate change. I want to show my viewers the key to do doing this; community and connection. It’s often forgotten that climate change is a deeply humanitarian issue.It’s not the earth that’s in danger, it’s us, considering this, we all need to collaborate in this fight.”

According to Jerri Jerreat, director of Youth Imagine the Future, judge for the writing aspect of the competition writer, retired teacher and lifelong environmental activist, the talent and passion the youth showed in the competition has left her feeling elated, excited and hopeful for the future.

She helped create YITFN because during her time as a teacher at Elginburg Public School, she noticed that the Ontario curriculum doesn't provide enough positive climate solutions. When she retired, she began to focus on her writing and also find a way to deal with the reality that youth experience today.

Studies conducted by Lakehead and Simon Fraser University have shown that across Canada, youth are struggling with growing climate anxiety

See: https://www.lakeheadu.ca/about/news-and-events/news/archive/2023/node/75487

Part of the Youth Imagine the Future Initiative is community outreach and Jerreat spent a lot of time in classrooms in the community, talking about climate action to show them that there is hope, and point to  tactical efforts they can make.

“It was very exciting to see that a lot of the students took the education to heart and took the time to imagine how our future could be better and show the world that through their art or a short story,” she said. “I am feeling very proud.”

Jerreat’s theory on why Frontenac County students feel driven to create art and short stories that imagine a better future for the environment is based on the proximity many of the students in the area have to nature.

“They love it and they want to protect it,” she said. “You can’t protect something if you don’t love it and you can’t love something if you are not connected to it.”

For more information on the competition and a better look at some of the entries, visit Youthimaginethefuture on instagram or at their website.