Published:
Art is a powerful tool to share social messages and inspire change. Visual artists like Shepard Fairey, musicians like Beyonce and authors like Mira Jacob have used their creative voices to speak truth to power and raise awareness of the important issues facing us today. Pepco, the DC Public Library Foundation and DC Public Library invited D.C. teens to find their power and use it to creatively address a topic that is important to them.
We're excited to share the winners of the 2025 Know Your Power civic engagement art contest with you below. We hope the talent and creativity of DC's youth challenge you to listen to and observe the city around you while looking to the teens who call this place home for valuable insight on how to create lasting change.
Visual Art
Winner | Hadji (18), Southeast Library
Artist Statement: This design is inspired by a few of my character concepts I have worked on prior to this, but this one overall I take design inspiration from some of the artwork I follow from Gigi Murakami. The design style has no lines so it allows me to give it a smoother style, and the shading to fight the tone of the picture as well.
Additional work from Hadji
Artist Statement: My piece is crafted with inspiration from some of my favorite horror artists, one of them being Junji Ito, and my most favorite being an African-American illustrator, who goes by Gigi Murakami. I created it out of my love for comic book covers and the traditional detail for line art and body horror. I hope to get into the industry one day to continue my passion for horror artists and comic design and illustration.
Writing
Winner | Darrius (18), Woodridge Library
Artist Statement: A poem about the struggles that African Americans have been through and continue to endure and the oppression we have been through In everyday life.
A Black World
A Black World
Where shadows stretch longer than the day,
Where voices rise but fade away,
Where justice wavers, blind and torn,
And dreams are shackled before they’re born.A Black World
Where sirens scream and mothers pray,
Where hands are raised but lives still pay,
Where history echoes through the streets,
Yet truth and change refuse to meet.A Black World
Where wealth is locked behind a door,
Where labor’s cheap but worth much more,
Where schools are crumbling, books run dry,
And futures dim beneath the sky.A Black World
Where beauty’s stolen, cast aside,
Where strength is feared but dignified,
Where kings and queens reclaim their names,
And fight to rise despite the chains.A Black World
Yet love still grows in soil so deep,
Yet hope still stirs in those who weep,
Yet voices thunder, strong and free,
For what we are and what we’ll be.
Runner-Up | RaMal (14), Anacostia Library
Artist Statement: This piece is about living in DC through my eyes. The city is so heavy, so much weight to live day to day. Even when making the right decisions can be hard I push. I have been getting the short end of the stick. How do I remain positive, motivate? My peers are dying, outside is not safe. My reality in the city is in this piece.
Through My Eyes by Ramal
For a young Black man in DC, at 13 it looks like
a gun to my ribs for a ski.
It looks like freedom stripped,
again and again, right from under me.
Mocked by leaders in school systems
that hold no one accountable.
Single moms - exposing, embedding, advocating,
committing -
still carrying the weight.
Some days, I'm tired of living.
I see.
I see.
Youth see.
Do you see?
The city makes decisions for us,
but in their picture there is no me -
no we that wants to live past 13.
I've witnessed my friend
get his shoes taken off his feet.
Spring break feels like a gamble -
will I make it home?
Do you see?
Through the eyes of a young Black teen in DC
trying to persevere,
trying to be a child,
trying to remember what it is to dream,
functioning in chaos -
I choose to take my power back.
I step firm into what's next for me.
Know Your Power. Empower.
This isn't the end for me.
Through my eyes,
my journey is up to me.
Dear Me,
With love,
Yourself.
Photography & Film
Winner | Milaki (18), Shaw/Watha T. Daniel Library
Artist Statement: The name of my piece is "First Five Days," where I photographed different subjects at my campus of Howard University, where I currently reside, from clock towers to parties that lasted hours.
Runner-Up | Ojasvi (14), Palisades Library
Artist Statement: Walk for Wildlife documents wonders of the natural world and appreciation for the environment. I tracked, recorded, and verified the species of plants, trees, mushrooms and fungi, insects, birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, and reptiles.
Music
Winner | Ne'vaeh (17), Woodridge Library
Artist Statement: This is a song fully written, arranged, produced, mixed, and performed by me. It's called Dnd as of now, and the melody came to me in a dream. And in that dream there was a love interest who I was overindulged in, almost obsessive and wrote it from that perspective. I started the beat making process for it on April 12th of this year, a while after I started the writing process, and recently completed it with the recording, arrangement, and mixing of the song.