First Friday: Co-Creating Our Future
Each venue will host a Climate Solutions Trivia Challenge, making climate action fun and engaging! To participate, text your answers to 585-667-0242 throughout the night. Test your knowledge, learn about sustainability and win a one-of-a-kind handmade piece of art from a local artist!
Join us for a special First Friday event on April 4, 2025, where art meets climate action! In celebration of Earth Month and in partnership with the Climate Solutions Summit, galleries and art spaces across Rochester will showcase works inspired by our planet, exploring themes of nature, sustainability, and our collective future.
Each venue will also host a climate trivia challenge, adding a fun and engaging way to spark conversation about solutions for a thriving, resilient, and regenerative Genesee-Finger Lakes region.
First Friday Rochester has been bringing people together through art since 2008, and this month, we invite you to be part of a citywide creative exploration of how we can co-create our future.
Participating Venues
Stony Point Art Studio, 114 N Main St., Fairport – 4-8pm
Stones and paint markers are available for visitors to create Climate Kindness Stones. Poems, images, and quotes relating to climate awareness will be on display for inspiration. Visitors can leave the stones along their First Friday path for others to find and spread awareness through their words and images.
Pittsford Fine Art, 4 N Main St, Pittsford – 5-8pm
The Finger Lakes have a special combination of agriculture, lakes, villages and undeveloped lands, where they exist in harmony together in a rich ecosystem. The Adirondack Region is different in that there is more wilderness, where humans have much less of an impact on the landscape on a daily basis. Featured artist Mark Stash hopes that through his landscapes, he can convey the dynamic balance of the natural environment with the needs of people.
Impact Earth, 1458 Monroe Ave, Rochester – 6-8pm
The Free Art Collective and Impact Earth present Side By Side, a show featuring Western New York Artists that puts the beauty of nature up against climate and environmental issues. Jon Bolt – one of the artists exhibiting in Side By Side – will be giving a presentation on microplastics in our local environment.
Flower City Arts Center, 713 Monroe Ave, Rochester – 6-9pm
Do you speak Earth? FCAC will provide climate-focused activities including an interactive, hands-on paper-mache trash demo and pop-up by Julia Wolfe; letterpress poster printing on hand-made recycled paper; sharing samples of their alternative photographic processes from the Silver Den; and opportunities to learn about FCAC’s alignment with environmental causes.
Kali Ann Art Studio, 1144 E Main St, Rochester – 5-9pm
Using soy milk, paint designs and patterns onto a cotton bandana, then submerge it into a dye pot to magically transform your creation into a colorful and vibrant work of art. Learn the concepts & process to create non-toxic, eco-friendly natural dyes from food waste and kitchen scraps. Students leave with their bandana and a worksheet on the natural dyeing process.
Rochester Contemporary Art Center, 137 East Avenue, Rochester – 6-9pm
Join us and Teaching Artists ROC for your last chance to make 6x6 artworks! TAROC artist Jennifer Jones will lead participants in a 6x6 art-making session inspired by the climate, our environment and nature in general.