CITYarts “Pieces for Peace” will be on display in the Main & Youth Galleries January 9 – February 21

Main Gallery

Upcoming Exhibition

GALLERY OPENING: FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 5 – 7 PM

CITYarts engages youth with professional artists in the creation of public art, including murals and mosaics. Through this creative process, CITYarts empowers, educates, and connects youth and children locally and around the world to become active participants in realizing their potential and transforming communities.

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Following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, CITYarts created the Pieces for Peace project under the Young Minds Build Bridges program. It is designed to build bridges of intercultural understanding by bringing together American youth and their international peers in the creation of 6”x6” artworks combining to form an Online Mosaic composed of tile-sized drawings, painting, and poems that answer the question: “What does Peace look like to me?”

Selected works then travel around the world in an exhibition. All of these ideas have inspired the imagery in our CITYarts Peace Walls– a collection of seven large-scale outdoor mosaic murals. They are located in Harlem, New York; Karachi, Pakistan; Tel Aviv Jaffa, Israel; London, United Kingdom; Berlin, Germany; Toro, Spain; and Wetteren, Belgium. Our Traveling Exhibition, which displays highlights from 126 participating countries, has visited 48 venues in 18 countries. Having organized at least one workshop in 126 different countries to date, our goal is to reach all of the world’s 193 nations. We are giving youth of all nationalities the chance to connect through PeacePals under the UN flag, who will transform into adults that give back to their communities.

“With our programs, we plant seeds of very-much-needed creative young leadership around the world.” – Tsipi Ben-Haim, Founder Executive & Creative Director, CITYarts

Lower Level Gallery

Pop-Up Exhibition

The Lost Ski Areas of Vermont by the Manchester Historical Society & the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum

You’re invited to explore a special pop-up exhibit in the lower gallery of the Manchester Community Library. This collaborative display between the Manchester Historical Society (MHS) and the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum (VTSSM) in Stowe highlights Vermont’s “lost” ski areas. 

For more than 20 years, VTSSM has been documenting Vermont’s “lost” ski areas. Their research has identified 190 closed ski areas and six that never opened. This exhibit features a selection of sites located south of Route 4, including #35: Snow Valley, which is highlighted here.

To learn more about Vermont’s lost ski areas, please visit vtssm.org or call 802-253-9911.

Youth Gallery

Upcoming Exhibition

Presented alongside the CITYarts Pieces for Peace Traveling Exhibition in the main gallery space, this companion display highlights the creativity and perspectives of students from Long Trail School and Burr & Burton Academy, who contributed their own works to the global Pieces for Peace initiative.

Participating students were invited to reflect on the central prompt, “What does peace look like to me?” and to explore the theme across disciplines, from art and literature to history, social studies, world languages, and science. Using a 6″ x 6″ format shared by thousands of young artists worldwide, students created paintings, drawings, collages, photographs, poems, and mixed-media compositions that express their individual visions of peace.

Their works join a global conversation that now spans more than 12,000 artworks from 126 countries, submitted by over 1,500 schools and organizations across six continents. These youth-created pieces form the heart of the CITYarts Online Mosaic, fuel an international traveling exhibition, and have inspired the creation of seven large-scale CITYarts Peace Walls around the world.

This local installation celebrates the thoughtful, imaginative contributions of our community’s young people and honors their place within this worldwide movement toward understanding, connection, and peace.

MCL is proud to offer the Youth Gallery space on the walls of the Children’s Library. The Youth Gallery features the work of local young artists and hosts a gallery opening for each exhibit.

View the MCL Gallery Page for Gallery contact information and to read about other current and upcoming exhibitions.