If you haven’t heard, we’re releasing our first episode of The Unexplored in segments, for free, on YouTube. Prepare to be fascinated by this journey through the history of women artists and their work from Prehistory to the Baroque.

Part One looks at who may have created early cave paintings, and why.

Part Two travels to the Middle Ages to meet Hildegard von Bingen, a German abbess with divine artistic talent.

If you want to catch all the segments as they release, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you want to see the full, 11-minute episode without ads or censorship, it’s available on Patreon for the price of a drip coffee in a fancy zip code.

As election season heats up, we’re working on a number of get-out-the-vote spots for our old friends at The Environmental Voter Project. Their mission is to “identify inactive environmentalists and transform them into consistent voters to build the power of the environmental movement.” If you want to dive deeper into what that means, here’s the launch video we made for them several years ago.

For the 2024 election, we’re making a series of YouTube spots that are specifically targeted at known demographics in select “battleground” states that — thanks to our quirky electoral college system — will likely decide the presidential election. The target demographic contains potential voters that not only are environmentalists, but also consistently under-participate in elections.

Here’s a look at a recent one we did for Arizona. As you watch, pay close attention to the messaging. Each shot is carefully considered…

EVP founder and executive director Nathaniel Stinnett walked me through the behavioral science “nudges” that inform each script line:

• More and more Arizonans are voting each year: This leverages the behavioral psychology concept of “trending norms.” Most people — because we’re social animals — feel pressure to conform to normative behavior (i.e., what your peers are doing), but that pressure is even greater when the norm is trending away from you (i.e., more and more people are doing this thing that you’re not doing!). It essentially elicits FOMO from our targets.
• Record-breaking numbers: This is basic peer pressure.
• Don’t be left behind: This reinforces the FOMO feeling related to the trending norms mentioned in the first bullet point
• Be a good voter: This is turning our desired action (voting) into a description of someone’s identity (good voter vs. bad voter). It’s much more powerful to equate the act of voting with the type of person someone wants to be than it is to try to logically convince them of the value of voting.

So there you have it: The science behind persuading unengaged voters to get out there on election day and make a difference. We’re looking forward to releasing spots for more states before November 5!

We’re super excited to announce the release of two episodes from a new arts education series entitled Everyday Art Foundations. For nearly a decade, we’ve been working for the wonderful folks at Kentucky Educational Television to produce a range of educational media, and this just might be our best collaboration yet. We’re incredibly grateful to the KET team for their collaboration and guidance on these episodes.

The first episode, What is Creativity, helps young learners establish an understanding of what it means to be creative, and how creativity is foundational to the human experience.

Meanwhile, Responding to Art gives young learners a basic framework for experiencing and interpreting artistic works.

To learn more about the series, and for additional classroom resources, be sure to visit the PBS LearningMedia links below:

PBS LearningMedia: What is Creativity?
PBS LearningMedia: Responding to Art

These videos were funded by a generous grant from the W. Paul and Lucille Caudill Little Endowment for the Arts.

Credits:

Client: KET
Creative Director: Joshua Gunn
Art & Animation Director: Jen Sanchez
Producer: Franziska Blome
Script: KET
Storyboard, Design, & Animation: Jane Winters
Character Animation: Kim Hui
Music & Sound: Taiko Sound