This project was the result of a collaboration between the Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond Secondary Schools, Dr. Cameron Cartiere and the chART collective as a component of the larger Border Free Bees project. The goals of the Youth Outreach Project were to introduce Richmond high school students to socially engaged arts practice and to support them in taking the themes and issues from art gallery exhibitions back to their schools to create art projects that involved their school community. The project was artist-led, but was deliberately structured to let the students and teachers work together to develop the art projects, using gallery exhibitions as starting points.

The exhibitions For All is For Yourself  by Cameron Cartiere and the chART collective, and not by chance alone by jasna guy explored issues surrounding declining pollinator populations, and the ways in which members of the community can take action to solve this imminent problem.  Students and teachers from Hugh McRoberts, H. J. Cambie, and J. N. Burnett Secondary Schools visited the exhibitions and met with the artists and other “bee experts” for a full day event at the Art Gallery and at the Pollinator Pasture.  Back at their prospective schools, each class incorporated what they learned into art projects meant to inspire their school communities to learn more about and how to support local pollinator species.

The pages and photo galleries below detail the site visits, artist-led school workshops, and the resulting student artwork for this project.