Oxford Community Arts Center teamed up with ECO, Engaging for Climate in Oxford, to sponsor their newest exhibit, Changing Climate, Changing Communities, which opened during the Second Friday Celebration on May 10 and will be on exhibit until June 1, at the arts center.

The exhibition displays 100 pieces from students and community members, with 80 created by Talawanda Middle School students.

The goal of the event was “to help people recognize and understand the issue of climate change,” said Amy Sullivan, one of the founders of ECO.

ECO works to educate the local community about environmental issues, and the art can “illustrate how climate change is impacting us here in Oxford,” said Katie Feilen, another founder of the organization.

“Most people think climate change is this big, nebulous thing,” said Sullivan, but communicating climate issues through art “can make it more approachable through an artistic lens to help people understand and interpret the issue.”  

Climate change is “not something big and far away, but something personal,” she said. “It’s here and now.”

Feilen hopes that the exhibit will help “change the dialogue about what is happening to what we can do about it.”

Besides the art, nine local environmental groups and ECO partners, including MOON Co-Op and the Hefner Museum of Natural History, presented educational booths during the exhibit’s opening on May 10.

For its next project, ECO is working with Talawanda Middle School to incorporate science into their art curriculum.

Artists for the show include Katherine Abbott, ArtistryFarm, Tracy Bezesky, Carla Blackmar Rice, Libby Earl, Courtney Crone, Cherie Day, Lee Baker Devore, Jackie Fulker, Matthew Granata, Robert Knight, Evelyn McLean, Lucy Pennell, Jim Rubenstein, Martin Clarke Stein, Steven M. Sullivan, Jean Vance, and other anonymous Community Collaborators.