Arts & Climate Collective Festival

ACC Earth Month Festival

April 2nd, 2024

On a sunny afternoon in April, hundreds of guests joined the Arts & Climate Collective in celebration at the annual ACC Earth Month Festival. Attendees participated in creative, hands-on activities, explored ACC awardees’ art showcase, enjoyed dance and music performances, and learned about a myriad of organizations in sustainability, storytelling, arts, and community-building. Festival-goers also connected with new friends and ate delicious tacos from the local restaurant Chichen Itza.

The festival itself featured a resource fair where attendees had the opportunity to learn about over 20 student and community organizations, as well as different departments at USC working on issues related to sustainability, climate change, and/or environmental justice. Organizations ranged from affordable housing nonprofits to student groups like Peaks and Professors and the USC Garden Club. There was something for everybody interested in sustainability or the arts– and a complete list of links to our tabling partners can be found at the bottom of this article.

The ACC’s mission is rooted in community-building and aims to create a space that fosters relationships and ignites collaborative action. To further facilitate this, the ACC also organized a community mixer in USC’s sustainability hub together with USC’s University Relations department for team members from various community groups to engage with one another before the main festival. 

The ACC festival also boasted an extensive schedule of engaging activities. LA Commons hosted a seed art table where participants contributed to a sprawling mosaic and Community Service Unlimited held a produce giveaway. Another station invited attendees to doodle how they envisioned a sustainable and equitable Los Angeles, which attracted sketches of green spaces and smiling blue whales, as well as calls for inclusive cultural centers and affordable rent. These were just some of the activities at the festival, which you can catch a glimpse of below:

Learn more about our resource fair tabling partners:

• AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles

• Cnidarian Evolutionary Ecology Lab

• Community Service Unlimited Inc

• Environmental Justice Research Lab/ SC-CCEHRT

• Esperanza Community Housing 

• Fifty-One Miles 

• Koreatown Youth & Community Center

• La Commons 

• Legacy LA

• NewFilmmakers Los Angeles

• North East Trees 

• Peaks and Professors

• Student Committee of the President's Working Group on Sustainability

• TEST PLOT 

• TreePeople

• USC Arts in Action

• USC Environmental Student Assembly

• USC Garden Club

• USC Native American Student Assembly

• USC Peace Garden

• USC Sustainability

• USC University Relations  

• USC Urban Trees Initiative 

• USC Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability 

USC Zero Waste 

Regenerate 2023

Regenerate 2023 attracted over 100 participants, making it the most popular iteration of the event since its creation three years ago. 2023’s Regenerate featured a workshop by artist, curator and USC professor China Adams, who guided attendees in a collaborative collage-making session around envisioning a sustainable future. Attendees snipped words and pictures from old magazines and newspapers and created sprawling, bright collages.

Complementing this, a Q&A session with local researchers and community leaders from Legacy LA, Civic Imagination and the USC Center for Children's Environmental Health provided insights into the ACC's theme for 2023: "How would you reimagine Los Angeles?" The event also boasted a networking and community building component with catering from Taqueria Vista Hermosa.

Post coming soon! For now, check out some photos from our event!

Mural Contest

Read about the winners of our mural contest!

Andy Johnson

“For the Poppy Mural, I wanted to bring attention to a cultural lack of sustainable practices by contrasting the natural beauty of a California poppy with a pile of actual trash surrounding it. Both uplifting and saddening, the goal of the imagery is to inspire environmental change. The mural theorizes on a world if the mindset of sustanability isn’t more widely embraced?”

John Davillier Jr

“The black arts collective is an interdisciplinary arts club dedicated to the production of black art and strengthening the community of black artists. The club puts on a variety of events, productions, and projects that link together the community of black students on campus.”

Nina Tomasevic

"I wanted to show important and recognizable images that represent sustainability and eco-friendly practices, all surrounding a glowing Tree of Life symbol."

A fun fact about Nina is that this is her first time painting a mural!

Shea Noland

"Hi my name is Shea Noland and I am a current sophomore BFA student at USC. Coming from Honolulu, Hawaii, sustainability is very important to me and my work. I am passionate about using my art to address topics relating to the environment and how we impact it and so am very excited to participate in USC’s own sustainability efforts through completing this mural! "