OUT Maine has partnered with Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) and Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) to bring LGBTQIA2S+ youth artwork and creative writing to Midcoast Maine during Pride Month (June). This year's theme for the submitted art and writing exhibitions is “Queer in Maine.”

LGBTQIA2S+ and allied youth are encouraged to consider place and its relationship to identity. The prompt asks what it means to be queer or trans here in Maine; what it looks like, feels like, or represents for young people.

"This theme can be interpreted however the artists choose," said OUT Maine, in a news release.

OUT Maine is collecting artwork through May 22.

Pieces submitted for this year’s Youth Pride Art Show will be on display at two locations in Rockland: the ArtLab window of the CMCA at 21 Winter Street, and Rock City Café at 316 Main Street. In addition, art and writing will be shown in display cases along a wooded 1.4-mile loop trail at Erickson Fields Preserve. The trail runs along MCHT’s Teen Ag Crew food bank farm and Community Gardens at 164 West Street in Rockport.

Please send in your artwork or creative writing through OUT Maine’s website by May 22. Submission instructions and guidelines can be found here: https://www.outmaine.org/programs/for-youth/pride-art-shows/

OUT Maine is a non-profit working to create more welcoming and affirming communities for Maine's diverse queer youth in all their intersectional identities by changing the systems that serve them.

More information about OUT Maine and Pride events across the state can be found online at https://www.outmaine.org/.

More information about MCHT’s Erickson Fields Preserve and the CMCA can be found at https://www.mcht.org/preserve/erickson-fields/ and https://cmcanow.org/