Call for entries: Social Art Award 2021

The award aims to invigorate the rise of social art by exploring the field, and seeks to strengthen the recognition of social artists and the value of their work. The winner will receive €1 000 (about $1 200) in prize money. Three other selected winners will exhibit their work in Germany in the summer of 2021. Additionally, the top 50 artists of the preselection phase will be featured in this year’s digital book.

In 2019, Benoît Maubrey’s Speakers Arena made it to the top 50 slots. The project is a participative urban sound sculpture conceived as a small amphitheatre and constructed with 320 recycled loudspeakers.

The 2020 edition will runs under the theme, New Greening and seeks to answer the following questions:

• What does art have to say in these urgent times of transformation?
• How do social artists empower, cherish and support the transition towards sustainable, green societies working on achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals? 
• Does art have the power to catalyse change, initiate transformation and enable positive futures? 
• Where does art take place? 
• What forms of art are created? 
• Where do we get inspired and empowered and appreciate the freedom of art and the spirit of humanity? 
• How can art contribute and encourage the understanding of the ‘New Greening’ on all societal levels?

Eligibility

All artists and cultural actors are invited to apply with the work they consider relevant for social art. There are no restrictions based on gender, discipline, age, training or nationality.

Selection criteria

The jury will consider the following:

• Impactful contribution to the theme catalysing transformations towards green, regenerative societies.
• Collaborations with innovators, architects, urban designers, ecologists, technologists and changemakers – it’s not a mustn but an advantage.
• Participatory practices.

The submission deadline is 15 April (11.59pm CAT). 

View the original call here.