Painted Turtles
Painted Turtles, Donna Szoke, animation, 2022.
Donna Szoke | Artist Statement
Painted Turtles, 2022
Painted Turtles forges and fosters a connection between the 2022 Canada Games, local community, and local turtle conservancy. Two emerging artists (Julie Luth and Emily McDonald) and myself worked with youth to share how art raises awareness about endangered turtles and the environment.
Southern Ontario has the greatest diversity of turtles in Canada, and they can be found in a variety of habitats including lakes, ponds, rivers, marshes, and bogs. All of the eight local turtle species are federally designated as a species at risk. How do we engage with the need for these species’ protection, and not trigger a public already over-saturated with grief at environmental degradation and species loss? How do we look hopefully towards a challenging future? How can we inspire our community to engage with these turtles at risk?
Funded by the Canada Summer Games, and inspired by the Games’ mascot Shelly, this project forges and fosters a connection between the 2022 Canada Games, local community, and local turtle conservancy. The research project seeks to understand what affective processes inspire a lasting legacy of the Games through embodying ecological activism, “one turtle at a time.”
Grade 1 and 2 children at Jeanne Sauvé French Immersion School (DSBN) enjoy a virtual field trip to the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre. Learning about the important work of the OTCC, the children visited the hospital, visiting recovering and resident turtles, as well as eggs and hatchlings in the nursery! They then colour turtle images, and these images are scanned and animated by Visual Art student at Brock University. The animation is gifted back to the community, including the children, animators, OTCC, and the Canada Games.
Children’s approaches to drawing and painting are refreshing in their naiveté, gesture, and palette. By inventing a platform for generating turtle images created by children, our research-creation team will create a turtle animation meant to engage and inspire. The imagery will connect our current actions in wildlife conservancy to positive future outcomes: we will imagine a hopeful future for the turtle populations. Through research-creation processes and community engagement, we use drawing, colouring, and animation culminating in an art exhibition to build meaningful connections between turtle conservation and the local community.
Interactive colouring pages of Ontario turtles.
Life-size graphics including information representing many species of Ontario turtles.