Bucks County Artist, Kevin Aster Young, creates a community-driven art for the 160th Anniversary of Juneteenth titled “Forward Backward Together Forward (160 Years)” and will be shown at the Mercer Museum.
The art will be unveiled to the public at the Mercer Museum’s fourth annual Juneteenth Celebration at 12 p.m. on June 14th, 2025 – 84 S. Pine Street in Doylestown’s cultural district.
Young has created work for the museum’s Juneteenth event each year since 2022. He draws inspiration from his activism work in Bucks County around racial justice, community outreach, and the historical contributions of Black Americans to American history.
Year 2022 – Courtesy of Kevin Aster Young
Year 2023 – Courtesy of Kevin Aster Young
Year 2024 – Courtesy of Kevin Aster Young
Each year since Juneteenth became a federal holiday, the Bucks County artist has invited the community to contribute to a collaborative work of art at the annual Mercer Museum Juneteenth celebration in Doylestown based on the imagery found in the Juneteenth flag. This year, for the 160th anniversary of the holiday, Kevin has partnered with sixteen different community organizations and faith-based institutions to create a piece that simultaneously celebrates the holiday, highlights the history of the African-American experience, and unites diverse segments of the local community by having them collaborate on one cohesive work of art.
Courtesy of Kevin Aster Young
Each organization was given ten small canvases to paint according to the artist’s guidelines, resulting in 160 separate pieces in total. These many small canvases combine to create an image of the Juneteenth flag. In addition, each canvas corresponds to a particular year since the first Juneteenth celebration in 1865, and can be rotated to reveal the year and a QR code that links to a relevant educational article on Black history for that time.
This year’s work, titled “Forward Backward Together Forward (160 Years)” brings the community closer together while simultaneously embodying unity in diversity, visualizing the passage of time, and highlighting the contributions of Black Americans to American history at a time when doing so is of paramount importance.
Courtesy of Kevin Aster Young