Art to save the planet: the #CreateCOP award is back

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An oil slick in Peru depicted in stark monochrome images; a wild forest fire in India, a boy desperately crushing it with a branch; a businessman, resigned to the constant rise of the water level, putting on wellington boots to go to work. These are just some of the powerful images and multimedia projects that creative agency Art Partner has awarded since it founded its #CreateCOP award in 2019, hoping to raise awareness for the COP, the annual United Nations conference on Climate Change. . Now in its fourth edition, the contest is an open call (starting June 27) to all photographers and artists between the ages of 14 and 30. The goal, says Art Partner co-founder and CEO Giovanni Testino, is “to give a voice to a young generation of creatives who have inherited a planet that is in deep trouble.”

This is not art partnerHis first foray into this field. In 2015, the creative agency launched #ClimateCatwalk, an Instagram initiative calling for change; in 2017 it obtained carbon neutral certification. “We had incredible support from fashion community, but we are also very aware that our industry is a serious part of the problem”, admits Testino, brother of the photographer Mario. The #CreateCOP award has so far received submissions from more than 100 countries, including China, India, Ghana and Peru, while “the topics covered are incredibly broad,” he says, “from the demographic crisis and corporate irresponsibility to the proliferation of plastics and climate-related natural disasters. I think they are an incredible testament to how complex and multifaceted the crisis is.”

Last year’s winner, Peruvian Lizeth Lozano Palomino, created a project in motion that examines a large oil spill north of Lima that severely affected both the country’s population and the local marine ecosystem. It was “the biggest ecological disaster in my country,” says Lozano Palomino, who works as a nurse in Tenerife. She was inspired to create it after watching the movie Erin Brockovich.. But “the difference with my project is that the problem hasn’t been solved yet,” says Lozano Palomino, who is working on a new piece for the next contest. “The hydrocarbon is still on the surface [of the water]and the inhabitants do not have the necessary resources to continue this fight.”

“Our hope is to provide platforms from the northern hemisphere to voices from the southern hemisphere, who are often underrepresented and disproportionately and adversely affected,” says Testino, who is also Peruvian. The prizes are also, he adds, just a great showcase for new young talent, with cash prizes.

For Nicholas Bennett, whose project showed a man in a suit and wellington boots, as if starting his morning commute, an award like this is “very rare. It allowed me space to be critical and exploratory with my work.” Bennett got the idea from his native Yorkshire, which is subject to volatile flooding. Recognition of the award -he was a winner in 2019- “allowed me to get involved in my friends’ projects, such as one on polluted water sources and another on clay collection.”

Testino has often been surprised and moved by entries, be it Bennett’s sharp irony image or the beauty of the work of the 2021 first prize winner, Camila Jaber, who filmed herself freediving in the Tulum cenotes. What do he and the jury look for in a winner?

“I look for jobs that evoke emotions,” he replies. “I look for a perspective or experience that is different from my own.” She then quotes another participant, whose work reflected on how women must now consider whether having children contributes to the problem of overpopulation. “I had just never considered this,” she says, “and it’s stayed with me ever since.”

Applications for #CreateCOP open on Tuesday, June 27; enter by artpartner.com