Announcing the Winners of the 2025 Sadat Art for Justice and Peace Competition

Congratulations to winners of the 2025 Sadat Art for Peace and Justice Competition.

Congratulations to winners of the 2025 Sadat Art for Peace and Justice Competition. Our Studio Art students created compelling works of art in various media in response to this year's theme of climate justice.  This recipient's of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards for this year's exhibition are as follows:

1st Place:  Leah Orozco for 'Happyland' - acrylic on canvas (pictured above), 2025

This acrylic painting depicts the hardships and resilience of the Filipino people living in Tondo, Manila’s largest informal settlement. Nicknamed “Happyland”, residents often live alongside or underneath bridges and freeways. The Philippines is ranked first in the World Risk Index for natural disasters and due to climate change, it is becoming increasingly vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis, and other disasters that disproportionately affect impoverished communities. The capital city, Manila, holds 37% of the entire nation’s economy, leading many to seek economic opportunity there. Urban sprawl has taken a heavy toll on Manila, leading to the growth of informal settlements, such as Happyland. Lacking basic necessities and stable housing, these settlements are often devastated by frequent floods, causing residents to rebuild their homes over and over. As a Filipina artist, I not only wish to bring attention to the unseen struggles that Filipinos face, but I hope to highlight the tenacity, strength, and resilience of the Filipino people to get back up and rebuild their lives. The expressive, energetic brushstrokes and saturated colors are meant to convey the dynamic and lived-in nature of this community, as well as reflect their constantly changing environment. 

2nd Place:  McCleary Gallagher for 'Survivors' - acrylic, soft pastel, charcoal, newsprint, masking tape, ink, 2024:

In this piece, I explore the role of survivorship from the perspective of a pigeon—a textbook opportunist species—over the backdrop of countless other species lost to extinction. After I lost my childhood home and two cats to an electrical fire, I became wracked by existential guilt: why should I be privileged with life while others received painful and undignified deaths? Today, I can't help but feel a similar guilt as uncountable masses are stripped of their homes, their rights, and their lives while I get to continue my college career. Although the scales of suffering in a house fire and systemic oppression are incomparable, in both, I find myself unscathed when I have no right to be. These debts that I accumulate to the dead are ones I can't repay—is it enough to commit my life to defend and support the living? Is it enough to cherish the dead in memory? 

3rd Place:  Jill McCarthy Stauffer for 'To Be Guided By the Moon' - sand, masonite, 3D prints, LED strips, wire, circuit board, lamp, 2024:

to be guided by the moon references the mass gathering of horseshoe crabs every late
Spring on mid- Atlantic and New England beaches to reproduce. These ancient creatures
are attuned to when the moon is either full or new, and use it as their sign to gather,
despite the fact that shorelines have changed dramatically in their time on earth. In this
installation, digital media is employed to attempt to recreate this ritual, emphasizing the
sense of the communal and eternal. The work speculates on what the future of this
ancient gathering looks like in an increasingly human altered environment.