The public can celebrate Park City’s leadership in sustainability and climate action through the We Love Cities challenge that runs through Oct. 11.

The contest is an engagement campaign where people around the world can support sustanable development and suggest improvments in theses cities, according to Welovecities.org.

Residents and visitors can visit Recycle Utah, Park City Library and the PC MARC to take photos of interactive art backdrops created by local artists Adrianna Allegretti, Anna Leigh Moore, Elaine Lee and Emily Quinn Loughlin and post them on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #WeLoveParkCity.

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Each hashtag will generate votes for Park City with likes and shares during the social-media campaign competition, said Celia Peterson, Park City’s environmental sustainability project manager.

Our local artists, who are visual storytellers, help define our local identity…” Jocelyn Scudder, Arts Council of Park City and Summit County executive director

“We’re trying to get people to highlight their favorite sustainability work around the community,” Peterson said. “We’re also able to search for that hashtag to see which organizations have stepped up and want to talk about sustainability and climate action.”

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People can also log votes by visiting welovecities.org/park-city, she said.

“The website also includes a place where people can give suggestions of how Park City can take things further in regards to these issues,” Peterson said.

Peterson reached out to the Arts Council of Park City and Summit County to recruit local artists to create the interactive backdrops, said Arts Council Executive Director Jocelyn Scudder.

“As an arts council we are constantly discussing ways how the arts can be used as a tool to further community priorities,” Scudder said. “We’re appreciative that Park City recognizes the value of how art can be used, because our local artists, who are visual storytellers, help define our local identity.”

The backdrops, based on the theme My City in Motion, were created from upcycled construction waste, which integrates the concept of zero waste, according to Scudder.

“It was beautiful how artists interpreted that theme, to show people — residents and visitors — that climate and sustainability are top priorities in Park City,” she said. “Each artist took the theme in completely different directions. We have abstract, realism, hypo-realism and other landscapes of Park City.”

The artists, which were selected from a call for Summit County artists, created their works onsite at Planet Earth First, a Park City-based nonprofit that conserves resources, plants new trees and researches environmental science.

The backdrops were unveiled on Sunday, Sept. 20, on Main Street, and moved to their respective locations that afternoon, Peterson said.

“These works turned out so great that we may even keep them at these facilities after the campaign ends,” she said.

Park City‘s participation in the We Love Cities challenge stems from being the U.S. winner of the World Wildlife Fund’s One Planet City Challenge, a worldwide competition that focuses on climate change and sustainability efforts, according to Peterson.

Park City landed the top spot out of 22 cities across the country, she said.

“We were selected by an independent jury of judges who basically looked at our carbon report, which pulls together all the activities we do around the community that focuses on climate change, mitigation and adaptation,” Peterson said.

Some of the other cities in the running included Los Angeles, California, and Cleveland, she said

“They all have great sustainability programs, and I’ve been a huge admirer of what they’ve been working on for a while,” Peterson said.

Scudder is grateful to Park City for reaching out to the Arts Council for the project.

“We’ve worked with Park City before for climate actions during National Climate Week, so this is a partnership that Celia and I have nurtured together for years,” Scudder said. “As an arts council, we’re always looking for opportunities to support our artists, who all have been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with closed galleries and canceled arts festivals,” she said. “It’s been a privilege to work with on the project.”