Cultural and Artistic Responses to Environmental Change - 2020 call for proposals

The Prince Claus Fund and the Goethe-Institut are issuing a new Call for Proposals to support cultural and artistic initiatives tackling pressing environmental issues around the world. The Call for Proposals: Cultural and Artistic Responses to Environmental Change is the third of this cycle and builds on the 2018 & 2019 editions, through which 35 exceptional projects were supported.

This 2020 edition will be the last in this format, though the Prince Claus Fund and the Goethe-Institut remain committed to supporting people who are finding creative ways to address environmental issues and the climate crisis. 

Alarming changes in nature and our environment are all around us: forests and wildlife are disappearing; air and oceans are increasingly polluted; sea levels are rising; and the frequency of extreme weather phenomena is increasing; additionally, the outbreak of a world-wide pandemic is a wake-up call. While causes and consequences of environmental change are being debated by politicians, scientists and the broader public, the most affected people are often those with least power to stop the process. 

Cultural practitioners, artists, architects and designers in many parts of the world are initiating projects, exchanging ideas and rethinking responses to environmental change, while actively engaging their communities. Now, more than ever, we need the arts and culture to help us respond; to inspire and motivate us by offering new ideas that challenge our perceptions and change our habits by introducing radical and trans-disciplinary perspectives and envisioning models of climate justice in the world. 

This call for proposals is aimed at Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe (please refer to the list of eligible countries*). We encourage innovative multi-disciplinary cultural initiatives by individual artists, creative professionals as well as cultural organisations; especially initiatives that express how the arts and new media can propose solutions to environmental issues and create alternatives that support sustainability and climate justice, foster cooperation and an exchange of new ideas globally. In this challenging period, we also encourage people to come up with new formats and modes of engaging with both local and global audiences.  

We are specifically looking to support initiatives that: 

Employ new media to re-imagine a more sustainable world, and provide space for different perspectives within the sustainability discussion
Promote the inclusion of women, indigenous communities and other marginalised groups
Support innovative & contemporary artistic and cultural interventions that enable local impact while encouraging a global exchange on culture of sustainability and climate justice as well as challenges to democracy the climate crisis poses
Encourage out of the box initiatives by artists and cultural practitioners looking to re-imagine conventional approaches to environmental sustainability and climate justice
Support the development of artistic initiatives that reinforce and rethink traditional knowledge and methods as a means to promote sustainability and climate justice

With this call for proposals we invite artists and cultural practitioners to envision a better future for our planet.

The Prince Claus Fund and the Goethe-Institut will support initiatives within the financial range of €15,000 – €20,000.

The deadline for the submission of project applications is 31 July 2020 at 17:00h Amsterdam Time. 

Please send project applications with supporting materials to proposals@princeclausfund.nl. Only applications filled out in the application form, sent to the email address above and received before the deadline will be considered. 

*Eligible countries in ASEM: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, Viet Nam, China, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand