OUR STORY
In February 2021, the artist Heide Hatry, affectionately known as Snowbanksy, built families of snowbears in Central Park, which seemed to raise the spirits of a Covid-weary community (New York Post , NY1, Fox 5 NY, Epicenter, Untapped NY, West Side Rag).
She tended the ever-growing pack for 3 entire weeks, working into the night to ensure that after the day’s melt the bears would be fresh and ready to greet passers-by in the morning. While building and maintaining them she’d invite kids and their parents to join her, and, as she answered their questions, she saw an opportunity to initiate discussion about the climate crisis.
In November 2022 she began organizing Polar Bear Fest, with the goals of
Building a community of other concerned global citizens
Building a conscientious grass-roots movement focused on realizing a better climate future through participatory art making
Igniting participants’ passion and inspiring their continued involvement in the movement.
Embracing our individual and collective responsibility for the natural world and the future of its inhabitants
Polar Bear Fest avoids traditional organizational expectations. It’s not about who’s in charge, who should or shouldn’t be invited, who does what job, what time to arrive or how long to stay. Polar Bear Fest is a rolling reminder that we are all, collectively and individually, endangering the lives of animals, our mutual habitat, and the survival of humanity. We have a say in whether or not that continues.
Polar Bear Fest seeks to make room for the overwhelming problem of climate change in our often far-too-busy lives. Although it’s difficult to imagine a constructive way of bringing people together over such an oppressive topic, we think that the necessary first step is to bring them together. And to bring them together in a deliberately mindful environment with others just as concerned. The act of gathering in itself may not change the world, but it creates the conditions for changing it: in its solidarity, in its concern, in its longing, in its visibility.
OUR VALUES
Active Engagement to Show that We Care
Our Gatherings are demonstrations to raise awareness about climate change and spark discussions through the art we create. We would like our snowbears to become as iconic as people holding up blank signs in Moscow; no matter where they are built they will always mean: NO! STOP coal, oil, gas, the military, transportation, and agribusiness from polluting our planet.
Polar Bear Fest strives to create a mutually supportive environment for everyone who wants to attend, no matter their artistic or cultural background. We see snowbear-making as an artistic outlet whose conceptual underpinnings open space for creativity and imagination to be applied to everyday life in a precarious environment.
We see every person as a part of the team, whether they help for a few minutes or for days; whether they make bears, or bring tea, whether they document the event, are involved in discussions, entertain the bear-builders, or simply appreciate what the others are doing.
We exemplify the values of environmental conservation through our ideas, our treatment of nature, and the products and resources used at our Gatherings.
CLIMATE COMMITMENT
We Want Snow
Polar bears depend on Arctic ice for their habitat. Global warming has caused the Arctic ice to melt at a devastating rate.
The purpose of Polar Bear Fest is to establish a community to change the paradigm of helplessness into an interactive, participatory, shared experience of creative expression that might also lead to creative solutions for a better, more sustainable tomorrow. We partner with local businesses and organizations with the planet in mind.
We want to encourage our community members to make their own supportive gear out of things they already have, to gift, share, exchange, or keep for themselves in order to assist the movement. We will have a PBF logo stamp in different sizes available at the Gatherings for builders or passersby to use.
We encourage people to be mindful when it comes to the use of plastic cups or disposable, single-use items in Central Park (and in their lives). Snowbear builders are encouraged to collect and properly recycle or dispose of any trash they come across.