Celebrating PRIDE: LGBTQ+ and Allied Youth Art in Midcoast Maine

Tue, 06/01/2021 - 7:00am

    June is Pride Month and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and Maine Coast Heritage Trust’s Erickson Fields Preserve are displaying art, photography and poetry by LGBTQ+ and allied youth for the whole month.

    The show is curated by OUT Maine and the theme follows Rockland Main Street’s “Visions of Inclusion.” According to Rockland Main Street, “in order to have a resilient community, it is integral that all identities are included, celebrated, and given a platform to shape our future…expressing what it means to be a welcoming community and depicting one’s visions for the future.”

    The Youth Pride Art Show is on display in the ArtLab window of the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) at 21 Winter Street, in Rockland.

    The Pride Walk features LGBTQ+ and allied youth poetry paired with art and photography in a series of display cases along a wooded 1.4 mile loop trail at Erickson Fields Preserve. The trail runs along Maine Coast Heritage Trust’s Teen Ag Crew’s vegetable garden at 164 West Street, in Rockport.

    These shows feature art and writing from youth ages 12 to 20 from all over Maine.

    OUT Maine has an ambitious goal: to create more welcoming and affirming communities for Maine’s diverse queer youth in all of their intersectional identities by changing the very systems that serve them. For more information, visit www.outmaine.org