The Prince Claus Fund and the Goethe Institut are calling for applications from artists in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe for their year-long Cultural and Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis (CAREC) programme, aimed at accelerating engaged community-based cultural practices with a focus on climate justice that acknowledge the social, political and economic dimensions of the environmental crisis.
The climate crisis is here, affecting millions in various ways and magnitudes. However, it is the Global South that is disproportionally faced with the most extreme outcomes of our climate collapse, exposing the social and political inequalities entrenched within societies.
Through this programme, The Prince Claus Fund creates an interdisciplinary platform to support critical artistic work, connect engaged practitioners, stimulate cross-disciplinary exchange, and centre non-hegemonic forms of knowledge to envision alternative models of climate justice worldwide.
CAREC brings together 12 mid-career artists and cultural practitioners (± 8-15 years of relevant professional experience) with four mentors, all working across a range of disciplines and environmental issues.
To encourage collaboration within the cohort and to support each artist in their individual practice, this programme incorporates various forms of interaction, including workshops, guest talks, and peer-to-peer sessions. Since participants come from different locations, most activities are conducted online. However, twice during the programme, they convene in person for two Lab Weeks, which are week-long mentoring intensives. Additionally, there is a collective project in the form of a publication and a web space.
The programme activities require an average time commitment of 10 hours per month, though this varies throughout the year. Moreover, participants should be comfortable sharing ideas in spoken English to foster a space of mutual learning and exchange.
Each artist receives an award of 10,000 EUR to work on the concept for a body of work that they outline in their application.
