With one third of Marin County residents projected to be 60 or older by 2030, the question of how we think about aging is no longer abstract: It’s local, immediate and personal.
That demographic reality forms the backdrop for What About Age?, a new exhibition now on view at the Marin County Civic Center gallery through May 6, presented by the Marin Cultural Association in collaboration with Youth in Arts. Free and open to the public, the exhibition takes on ageism with art—specifically, art made across the generations.
The exhibition began its life far from Marin, as a series of graphic art panels by New York–based writer and illustrator Aubrey Hirsch. Originally curated by Dr. Stacey Gordon, program director of New York University’s Next Phase Adult Caregiving and Retirement at Work Life, the work was first displayed at NYU’s Kimmel Windows with support from the New York University Office of the Provost. The panels use wit, clarity and visual economy to dismantle common assumptions about aging—ideas so embedded they often pass unnoticed.
And that might have been the end of the story. But in November 2024, San Rafael City Councilperson Rachel Kertz encountered the exhibition in New York and saw a wider possibility. Rather than simply importing the show, she recognized an opportunity to extend its premise into something participatory—something rooted in Marin’s own communities and lived experiences.
This expansion came through Youth in Arts’ Intensive Arts Mentorship (I AM) program, a paid visual arts mentorship for teens from Marin’s underserved communities. For What About Age?, Youth in Arts paired young artists ages 13 to 19 with older adult artists 65 and over, inviting them to work collaboratively on visual responses to ageism. Under the guidance of Youth in Arts teaching artists, these intergenerational teams produced more than 35 collaborative and interactive works—on paper, canvas and in sculptural form—that push back against the idea that creativity belongs to any single stage of life.
“What About Age? has been a rich opportunity to explore the many facets of aging and to celebrate the wisdom that comes with aging,” said Cathy Bowman, Youth in Arts mentor artist and Arts Unite Us coordinator. “It’s been inspiring to watch teams of younger and older artists collaborate on paper, canvas and through sculpture to reflect on what it means to get older because it’s going to happen to all of us.”
That sense of inevitability—aging as the one truly universal human experience—runs quietly through the exhibition. What emerges instead is a portrait of aging not as decline, but as continuity: experience meeting possibility, perspective meeting experimentation. The tagline that threads through the work, “Art is ageless,” reads less like a slogan than a simple statement of fact once one has spent time with the pieces.
Importantly, What About Age? extends beyond the gallery walls. The initiative includes community education programming aimed squarely at dismantling ageism in everyday life—expert-led workshops on supporting older adults, educational sessions on recognizing and reducing age-based bias, guided tours designed to spark conversation and cultural storytelling events intended to build bridges across generations. Details and schedules for these programs are available through Vivalon at vivalon.org.
An opening reception will be held for ‘What About Age?’ from 5 to 7pm, Thursday, Jan. 29, with Dr. Stacey Gordon in attendance, on the Marin County Civic Center’s first and third floors, 3501 Civic Center Dr., San Rafael. Open daily from 8am to 5pm, with accessible parking available in the lot off Peter Behr Drive.
