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2025

Looking Forward

Youth and the Future of Culture
Five young people pose in a V-formation on lowrider bicycles with tall handlebars in a city street.

Students from the Olathe Youth Leadership Lowrider Bike Club in Olathe, Kansas, develop leadership skills while building lowrider bicycles.

Photo by Chris Erazo, Brown Boy Media

Four young people in long evening gowns stand on stage, each with an open book and a microphone placed in front of them.

Youth poet laureate finalists Aliyah American Horse (Nebraska), Staphanie Pacheco (New York), Zoe Dorado (California), and Shnayjaah Jeanty (Florida) perform at the National Youth Poet Laureate Commencement in April 2024 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Photo courtesy of the National Youth Poet Laureate Program

A young woman wearing a hard hat, safety glasses, yellow safety vest, and tan jacket uses a metal tool on a white stone of a building.

Journeyman stone carver and mason Brianna Castelli carves a replacement stone for an earthquake-damaged column at the Washington National Cathedral.

Photo by Colin Winterbottom, courtesy of Washington National Cathedral

Two young musicians perform on an outdoor stage on banjo and violin.

Owen Kennedy and Fiona Stowell perform with the Vermont Folklife youth traditional music ensemble Sugar in the Pan.

Photo courtesy of Vermont Folklife Touring Group

July 2–7, 2025

In 2025, Looking Forward: Youth and the Future of Culture will explore creativity, vitality, resilience, and intergenerational learning and exchange through the contributions and experiences of youth. The program will underscore how young people influence and engage with culture, and how they create, innovate, and sustain cultural practices and traditions.

Drawing from diverse communities and perspectives, Looking Forward will feature youth-centered—and often youth-led—projects and organizations, and individuals who are generating new ideas, transforming their communities, and confronting contemporary challenges. By bringing people together in conversation, the program will foster intergenerational connections and explore how young people engage with tradition, influence future generations, and agitate for change.

Youth have participated in many Festival programs since 1967, but this is the first time the entire Festival is dedicated to their unique experiences. In 2025, the National Mall will become a “third space” where young musicians and entrepreneurs, skaters and artists, activists and craftspeople, and a host of others will collaborate, share, demonstrate, and discuss how they are shaping the future on their own terms.

As the Festival looks forward to the U.S. semiquincentennial in 2026, our aims are simple: to engage and support the next generation of practitioners, and to create a space where youth voices are part of the national dialogue.

Themes

  • Teen and adult mechanics pose around a red convertible in progress, parked at the entryway of a garage workshop.
    Students from the Sacramento Academic and Vocational Academy are converting a 1964 Impala to EV technology.
    Photo by Andri Tambunan
    Here Are Our Worlds

    How do youth create community and foster a sense of identity?

    “I believe youth culture is a real thing, but it’s not one culture. We express ourselves in many different ways.”
    —Andrea (age twenty-one), student and photographer

    Youth culture is diverse, dynamic, and always becoming, and young people make important contributions to the cultural landscape. Forward-thinking and resilient, they make place and create a sense of belonging by embracing creativity. Through dance, fashion, media, music, writing, and other creative expressions, young people engage in storytelling that explores and demonstrates who they are in the present, with an eye toward a future where everyone can thrive.

  • Thirteen young adults pose in black mariachi uniforms holding their instruments: violins, trumpets, and guitars.
    Mariachi Tesoro de San Fernando showcases the talents of advanced students from the city of San Fernando, California’s Mariachi Master Apprentice Program.
    Photo courtesy of the San Fernando Mariachi Master Apprentice Program
    Engaging Tradition

    How are youth engaging with and innovating traditions?

    “I’m shaping and setting stones with skills passed down through generations. The magnitude of it all constantly inspires me.”
    —Brianna (age twenty-four), journeyman stone carver and mason

    Whether they are learning in their homes, at school, in training programs, or on their own, youth recognize the value of cultural traditions and are committed to preserving them. From heritage trades such as blacksmithing and stone carving to traditional music apprenticeship programs and Native language reclamation, there is a growing interest among today’s youth in the transmission of knowledge between generations. They understand that tradition is a powerful tool that can connect them to their origins and that intergenerational exchanges are important forms of community building.

  • A young pose wearing a face mask and an Earth Conservation Corps T-shirt gestures with one hand as he holds a brown falcon in the other.
    John Wood, an activist with Earth Conservation Corps, demonstrates falconry at the 2022 Folklife Festival.
    Photo by Sonya Pencheva, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    The World We Want

    How are youth reimagining the future and responding to contemporary challenges?

    “I can’t vote yet, but some of my friends and I helped do get out the vote work during the election.”
    —Ivan (age seventeen), student

    Youth have always been at the vanguard of change. Active in civic and movement work, they are actively seeking ways to transform their communities and create a more just and inclusive society. Across the country, their efforts are driving local and national initiatives to address diverse issues such as climate change, food sovereignty, and gun violence. They are visionaries and innovators, and their activism reflects an understanding that a sustainable future begins in the present and they have a direct stake in making that future a possibility. Youth are not just inheriting the future; they are actively involved in reimagining and shaping it.

Program Highlights

  • Illustrated film camera in a blue circle.

    Emerging Media Makers
    Young filmmakers, journalists, and media artists are leveraging the power of media to share their stories and amplify youth voices.

  • Illustrated microphone in a purple circle.

    Expressive Culture
    Youth will demonstrate art, fashion, music, rites of passage, sports, and many things in between that illustrate the vibrancy of youth expression and the power of youth advocacy.

  • Illustrated lowrider car in a light blue circle.

    Lowrider Culture
    From lowrider bikes to EV engines, the new generation of lowrider aficionados will share their unique culture and style.

  • Illustrated mallet and hammer in an orange circle.

    Next Generation Artisans in the Traditional Building Trades
    Young craftspeople will share their experiences learning the heritage building trades from master artisans dedicated to passing on their knowledge and skill to the next generation.

  • Illustrated flower in a green circle.

    Sustainability and Stewardship
    Youth involved in climate and environmental initiatives discuss the work they are doing to construct a sustainable future.

  • Illustrated trumpet in a red circle.

    Traditional Music Apprenticeship
    Young musicians will express how music has the power to unify across generations.

  • Illustrated speech bubble in a turquoise circle.

    Youth & Native Language Reclamation in the U.S.
    Young American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian language learners and users, who balance being changemakers and carrying on traditional culture, will share their languages and what motivates them to become the next generation of speakers.

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