WESTMINSTER ART FESTIVAL
Our 2025 Theme:
"ONE PLANET"
We invite artists and poets to reflect on the simple but profound reality that we share one planet – our only planet. Who is “we”? More than 8 billion human beings, along with plant, animal, fungal, and single-celled creatures that number in the millions of species.
Complex webs of interdependent systems keep us all alive; destruction or disruption in any part of those systems can have far-reaching and devastating consequences. To name just a few examples: Deforestation means poorer air quality. Human-caused climate change leads to drought, fires, and floods in countries whose contribution to the problem is minimal; plastic trash ends up far from where it is produced; habitat destruction threatens the very existence of many species.
What happens locally has global implications; what is happening on a global scale affects us wherever we happen to live.
Art and poetry can help us think about the challenges that face our planet – and also about solutions, resilience, and reasons to love the earth. They can deepen our understanding, shift our perspective, inspire us to action. They can help us grieve losses, imagine solutions, celebrate connections.
“We are called to assist the earth to heal her wounds
and in the process to heal our own.”
~ Wangari Maathai
We invite you to CONSIDER some of the many ways distant and disparate environments are connected; the need to protect air, water, and land everywhere; the disproportionate impact of environmental catastrophe on the most vulnerable; the common humanity that unites us, despite differences.
We invite you to IMAGINE solutions that might include anything from renewable energy to fostering love of nature, from habitat protection to reimagining transportation, from changes in foodways to recycling.
ASK: what might “sustainability” look like? How can we “be the change”? How could we better work together?
Our planet cries out for help: how do we listen? How do we respond?
How can we use our voices – words, artistic media, talents, imaginations – to lift up a global vision that transcends narrower interests to prioritize the health of the ONE PLANET we share?