BELFAST — Gender equality, climate action, clean water and food, sustainability — these are just a few of the goals put together by the United Nations in its Sustainable Development Goals, developed by UN members in 2015. The goals were set as commitments for all 193 UN member countries to achieve by 2030.
Recently, eighth graders at Troy Howard Middle School completed art projects relating to those goals. The projects are molds of their faces, decorated in a way that represents their sustainable development goal.
For instance, one of the masks, representing equality in education, is covered with letters and math operations. Another, representing gender equality, is split in two, with one side a woman’s face with long blond hair, and the other, a man’s face with a beard. Yet another one is immersive, inviting you to put your face in the mold, which is attached to a cardboard box, to see pictures of up-and-coming basketball star Caitlin Clark.
“It really feels like the kids are kind of looking out at you, challenging you to think about this issue a little bit more,” said Caitlin Hutt, a THMS eighth grade social studies teacher who co-led the project.
The project is a part of the greater Samantha Smith Challenge.
“The Samantha Smith Challenge was started to challenge students to find an issue they cared deeply about and create art and awareness about that issue to try and make a change,” Ms. Hutt said.
The challenge was named after a young Manchester, Maine, peace activist who wrote to the USSR then-leader, Yuri Andropov. She traveled as far as Japan and the USSR, but tragically died at age 13 when the small plane in which she was a passenger crashed at the airport in Auburn. She is still remembered through the challenge, which encourages students thoughout the country to learn more about issues that interest them through all sorts of mediums.
In creating her art project, May Van Carpels, a THMS eighth grader, chose the topic of quality education as the theme for her mask, saying, “If you don’t go to school, you’re not going to learn how to talk. If you don’t learn how to talk, you’re never going to get a job. And then life [stinks] from there on out.”
Her mask, titled, “...Thoughts?”, was painted black and purple, and was covered in symbols representing education. Van Carpels' mask included a a percent sign on the eyebrow, and a hand holding a pencil near the mouth “because I value my education," she said.
"I hope to get a job in the medical field and that means I need to be a really good academic student, even if I’m not getting all A+’s.”
Ms. Hutt said, “They found information about what’s going on in the world right now, how the world is doing with reaching these goals and where we’re falling behind. Because it’s an integrated project, in art class, they plastered their faces, which was a lot of fun, and made masks. Each student designed their masks to support their ideas about the sustainable development goal that they researched.”
Another student, Ari Goguen, chose the topic of gender equality for their mask. “I tried to base it more off the transgender aspect of that," Ari said. "I’ve faced a lot of discrimination being a trans student, so I’m just trying to put that into the world.” Ari’s mask was painted the colors of the transgender flag and had the words “My body is not your property,” and “I am not owned by you,” also painted on the mask. The sculpture also included Frankenstein-like stitches, to “show how shoddily the concept of gender is made up.”
Opal Woodbury, another eighth grader, wanted her art to represent climate change. “I chose climate action, and I chose it because I thought it was a very interesting topic, as we live in Maine and the weather can be very unpredictable," she said. "It changes every year, and I thought it would be interesting to find out why.” Her art features felt flames engulfing the earth design painted on the face.
THMS art teacher Samantha Maheu said of the project, “I think [the students] really enjoyed getting a little bit messy, and being active with a sculpture project, where it’s not just drawing. And then once they’d done their research, it was exciting to see their idea and their research come out in color, and in form in the mask.”
The masks were shown in the Belfast Free Library's Abbott Room. You can find pictures of the art, as well as the artist’s statements, at https://tinyurl.com/facesofthefuture.
Eliot Fowler is a student at Troy Howard Middle School.