Wild HeART celebrates biodiversity and connection to nature through young creative excellence. In 2024, the much anticipated natural illustration competition is keeping it local and heading into the field.

Keeping it local. Children and young people from the Sunshine Coast and surrounding local government areas are invited to enter original artworks that capture our beautiful native species and the places they belong. We want you to connect with your local environment, to learn about the plants, animals and fungi that you see and reflect that incredible biodiversity and sense of place in a creative piece.

Into the field. Wild HeART is partnering with Sunshine Coast Libraries to put the finalists into the field. Twenty-one outstanding artworks and their student statements will be selected for the finalists' outdoor exhibition trail at the Maroochy Regional Bushland Botanic Garden. This will be on display for the entire summer holidays, from December 2024 through to January 2025.

Key Dates:

Entries open 7^th August 2024
Entries close 7^th October 2024
Finalists notified by 31st October 2024
Outdoor exhibition December 2024 - January 2025.

How to enter:

All entrants must read the Wild HeART Student Art Prize 2024 Conditions of Entry.

Submit your entry using the online form: here.

^{2023 Under 13yrs Wild Card Winner Ryeojin}

More information to read with and inspire your child or young person:

Are you under 18 years and live on the Sunshine Coast or nearby? Do you love nature and art?

Launching in August 2024, just in time for the Winter wildflower season and the first weeks of Spring - Wild HeART is back and excited to receive your natural illustrations. We want you to spend time in nature, to discover a new or revisit a favourite place, to observe and listen to the living environment, and then express the detail, beauty and personal connection to fauna, flora and fungi through your art.

Perhaps there's a native plant in your neighbourhood that has just burst into flower? Maybe a native bird visits your backyard and has built a nest, or after all the rain you've noticed tiny fungi erupting from the soil?

Have you visited a rainforest, bushland, wetland or coastal area that fills you with wonder and awe? Perhaps you have a nature journal full of sketches and thoughtful illustrations of places visited and the living beings that caught your curiosity. We want you to do some investigating! What species were there? Are they thriving or threatened? And how are they connected to each other and their habitat?

Wild HeART is your opportunity to tell the ecological story of a place you care about through your art, with a chance to be a finalist and have that art celebrated and seen.

Please read the Conditions of Entry and use the online submission form above.

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