A Vision of a Sustainable Future - Silicon Valley Clean Energy’s art competition

This year, Silicon Valley Clean Energy hosted a Sustainable future art competition. The competition centered around what the artist thought a sustainable and renewable future looked like. Not only did we receive an incredible collection of artworks, but these pieces were also showcased at a live concert exhibition. 

When we first announced the competition, our goal was to create a space where young artists could share their ideas freely. We encouraged them to share their creativity into any medium of art, whether it be painting, digital art, graphics, photography or video. 

Image from Microplastic Art Project - Kevin Chen and team

One of the submissions came from Kevin Chen, a video titled Microplastic Art Project. In the video, he targeted an important issue - microplastics in water that were harmful to the seaworld and our drinking water. Using sound waves, he was able to filter microplastics from the water, an innovation that is extremely novel and useful. To take it another step, he and a team of artists illustrated and animated a video. The video depicted the process of harmful microplastics in water, to it being filtered by sound waves and cleaned into our drinking water. Through this project, Kevin connected science, art and sustainability into a both scientific and beautiful piece. 

Kevin wasn’t our only special submission. All the submissions we received were unique and amazing, and we are infinitely grateful for the amount of time these artists spent with their pieces. There were paintings of beautiful butterflies on flowers, landscapes with windmills and solar power, and imagination that can only be captured through art. We awarded exceptional pieces and gave recognition to people that truly made this event possible.

What made this year’s competition especially memorable was our decision to bring the artworks beyond the walls of a simple gallery. Instead, we transformed them into a full exhibition experience featured at the Bayland concert. The exhibition featured photography from Jerry Sun, which captured the beauty in microscopes and the differences between sustainable and harmful.  

This competition created a vision of what a sustainable future could be like, and we hope we are able to achieve a beautiful future like these pieces. We thank our participants for their amazing and breathtaking artworks.