On Sunday, September 21, Street Works Earth, a day-long festival of art, climate action, and community, returns for the second year to 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens. A program of Street Works, in partnership with Make Justice Normal, this annual gathering is built through co-creation with artists, organizers, climate leaders, and neighbors, and takes place during New York Climate Week.
This year, Street Works Earth introduces Future@Work, a career fair to help people of all ages explore climate-related career paths. Future@Work is co-designed by ALIGN, El Puente, Frontline Resource Institute, KALEIDOSPACE, Make Justice Normal (MJN), Street Works, The Veggie Nuggets, Waterfront Alliance, and WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
The festival also highlights two additional themes: Thread Lightly, co-designed by KALEIDOSPACE, Make Justice Normal (MJN), Street Works, and WE ACT for Environmental Justice, explores the cultural and political power of fashion. Kindred Roots, co-designed by Make Justice Normal (MJN), Queens Mutual Aid, and Street Works, celebrates practices of care and mental wellness.
Last year, over 3,000 attendees joined 75 participating artists and community groups presenting artworks that change with each passerby. This is the artistic practice of co-creation: art that is not finished until it's made together. As in 2024, this year's festival features co-creation alongside calls for rapid action and co-creative decision-making between residents, justice leaders, and policymakers as New York falls further behind on compliance with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Free, family-friendly, and open to the public, the festival will run from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm ET on Sunday, September 21, 2025. The career fair, Future@Work, will take place primarily from 12:00 to 2:00 pm. Participating artists include Anjali Deshmukh, KALEIDOSPACE, Felix Masi, Memo Salazar, Purvi Shah, Derrick Seymore, Bayeté Ross Smith, The Improv Draft, The Veggie Nuggets, Ernest Verrett, La Trice Verrett, Troy Woodley, and Brentton Wilson.
"Too many of us feel like we have no path to earn a living, let alone fight for a future that works for us all. We need practical support, like good jobs, as well as joy, creativity, and collaboration. Combining these is how we build resilience, experience shared power, and find ways to face the future collectively," said Street Works co-founder Anjali Deshmukh. "Reclaiming public space for art and activism means creating with people. Co-creation is a joyful practice of shared power. It asks us to stop centering organizations or policymakers and instead center the collective. Street Works Earth is a rehearsal for the just and joyful world we're building together," added Street Works co-founder Ernest Verrett.
"Street Works Earth is a living experiment in normalizing justice-centered organizing. By designing models to demonstrate what equitable, care-driven solutions look like in practice when co-created in, alongside, and anchored in a community," said Monique Aiken, Queens-born co-founder of Make Justice Normal. "Future@Work shows that climate action and good jobs are inseparable. A just transition means creating opportunities where frontline communities and working people can thrive with dignity, creativity, and purpose. By co-creating this space for New Yorkers, we embody how meaningful work, community power, and climate action come together," said Jenille Scott, Climate Director at ALIGN.
"Frontline Resource Institute exists to support communities in taking bold climate action. At Street Works Earth, we see how co-creation in art and organizing builds the skills, connections, and confidence needed to tackle climate challenges together. This festival shows what's possible when neighbors lead solutions and imagine a future rooted in care and equity," said Margot Brown, Frontline Resource Institute. "Climate solutions must speak to our daily lives and our futures. Through Thread Lightly, we show how fashion shapes who bears the burden of pollution and who sets the trends. Through Future@Work, we're building pathways to green jobs so that young people, immigrants, and BIPOC communities can shape the climate future," said Sasha St. Juste, Organizing Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
"For El Puente and the BQE Environmental Justice Coalition, art and culture are resistance, and joy gives us the strength to fight for change in our own neighborhoods. As Brooklyn neighbors along the BQE, a corridor of environmental pollution cutting across the boroughs, we see community-center events like Street Works Earth as a model for the powerful and healing spaces that streets and public spaces can become when people, not cars, are centered," said Maria Fernanda Pulido-Velosa, BQE Environmental Justice Coalition Community Organizer at El Puente. "Climate change uniquely affects the youth of today. Many of us are looking for how we can contribute. Come to Future@Work to find ways to center climate justice in your career. Learn about skills, resilience, and creativity to survive and thrive through uncertainty," said Umed Maru, of the youth collective The Veggie Nuggets.
"Street Works Earth is a powerful example of what it looks like when climate action is rooted in community, creativity, and care. At Waterfront Alliance, we're committed to building pathways into climate careers that reflect the lived experiences of frontline communities. Future@Work is more than a career fair - it's a space where young people, artists, and organizers can imagine futures that are both resilient and just," said Furhana Husani, Director of Programs and Climate Initiatives at Waterfront Alliance.
