If you'd like to share your two cents (shekels, rubles, pesos, etc.) about the environment in the company of perhaps tens or hundreds of others for the sake of art, consider sending a submission in to this "Go Green" project being launched by a gallery in upstate New York. They'll be posting submissions online as they come in, and then adding them to what will eventually be a whole-gallery installation.

Here's all the info:

The Main Street Gallery is seeking submissions for a large scale installation on the environment.

The exhibition will be called "GO GREEN" to take place on June 12 - July 20, 2008. Artists and general public worldwide can participate by sending in handwritten or typed words in any language about the environment. The paper can be rolled, folded, scrap, colored and uneven preferably recyled and no larger than 8.5" x 11" ((22 cm x 28 cm). Drawings or photographs can be part of the work. No painting will be accepted. The handling fee is $10. Outside the US, money orders in US currency will only be accepted. The work will not be returned, since it will be part of a larger installation.

The complete space of the gallery will become an installation where one message is heard "GO GREEN". The aim of this show is to let the public voice their concerns about the environment.

The work will not be insured. All work will be accepted and displayed. The deadline date for submissions is MAY 2ND, but please do not wait for the deadline to submit. Send in fee plus work to The Main Street Gallery, 105 Main Street, P.O. Box 161, Groton, NY 13073, USA.

As the work comes in participating individuals will be listed on www.mainstreetgal.com.

I encountered a piece similar to this in the mid-1990's -- in an installation about breast cancer. Visitors to the gallery could opt to write down the name of a stricken loved one on a small piece of paper and pin it to hanging ribbons of fabric. As I wrote down my mother's name and then carefully selected a spot to pin it to, it felt strange it felt to "share" my ongoing mourning with people I'd never know. But it was moving to join so many others in pinning up a name, tangible proof that I wasn't alone in this.

I've imagined creating a similar piece -- where people would pin up the names of ponds or open fields that were gone from where they lived, or the names of animal species on the brink of extinction; perhaps sharing how sad, scared or angry we feel about losing these places and creatures, about what's happening to the biosphere, and realizing how many others feel the same (however abstractly), helps spark more and effective action.

(Thanks, Adrienne.)