Climate change is affecting mental health in all communities, especially in young people who increasingly are experiencing climate anxiety. Personal memories shared by long-term residents of Portsmouth about winters from the past, captured on video, will be at the heart of this multi-generational project. These recorded memories will serve as inspiration for Portsmouth High School art students who will be guided to create unique works of art in response to these memories.

Through preserving personal memories about the season as it was in the Seacoast region years ago, the project will allow students to express what they are feeling in the present, while also addressing the phenomenon of environmental amnesia, wherein with each new generation, the changed or degraded state of the environment is perceived as normal. 

The recorded memories, along with the student artworks, will be featured in the forthcoming Losing Winter exhibition in the Gallery at 3S Artspace in February and March of 2025. The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of public events in collaboration with other community partners.

More About Losing Winter:
Losing Winter was first realized with the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, Romania in 2018 and has since been activated in several other locations, including with Witte Rook in Breda, the Netherlands and with the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore, MD. The Losing Winter mobile app (free for iOS) is the project archive and invites users to experience the memories of others through an augmented reality display. To learn more about the project and its previous iterations, visit the project website.