EARTH PARTNER: ANSWERING THE CALL

ART PARTNER CHAMPIONS YOUNG CREATIVES GLOBALLY, SEEKING WORK THAT RESPONDS TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS.

By Morgan Becker

It’s the seventh year of Earth Partner—formerly known as CreateCOP—Art Partner’s annual contest for creative work in the name of climate justice. The rules are simple: Painters, photographers, performance artists, poets, musicians, coders, and fashion designers (really, any artist of any medium who falls between the ages of 14 and 30) are called upon to submit work advocating for ecological reform and care. The winners exhibit with Art Partner online, and, moving forward, around the world.

Earth Partner’s gallery shows are ongoing and transient, pulling from a pool of past winners to form something of a creative collective. In the past, they’ve organically partnered with the United Nations in New York and Fotografiska in Shanghai, staging exhibitions with far reach and education in mind. They’re supported by diverse organizations, from the Global Environment Facility—a family of funds dedicated to preventing biodiversity degradation, climate change, and pollution through initiatives like the Fashion Pact—to Atumnus, a food and wine festival staged in Trento in the Dolomites, featuring tastings and workshops spotlighting local products.

This September, during the 2025 Jubilee, Earth Partner will stage an exhibition at the Vatican’s Borgo Laudato Si’—formerly the gardens of the papal summer residence, which Pope Francis offered up to the public as an educational center for integral ecology, positioning sustainable practice as a core tenet of the Church. All of these venues open up their own unique conversational threads, in dialogue with the perspectives of the young artists whose voices are amplified by Art Partner each and every year. “It’s incredibly gratifying to see so many of the works displayed together,” says Amber Olson, President at Art Partner and founder of Earth Partner, “and also wonderful that the artists’ messages are shared again and again.”

Past winners have included Lizeth Lozano Palomino, whose multimedia piece Orilla Negra shed light on the 2022’s disastrous oil spill in Peru; Camila Jaber, whose film I Am Cenote pulls from her experience as a freediver, raising awareness about threats to freshwater ecosystems; and Nicholas Bennett, whose project Sustainable Traditions: Formalwear commented on New York and Yorkshire’s 2019 floods. Tongue-in-cheek, he designed a business suit with waterproof brogues and waders hidden underneath, in the case of future watery commutes.

This year’s contest opened for submissions here on June 11, and continues through October 10. The finalists and honorable mentions will be decided by a stacked jury, comprising Serpentine Gallery’s Hans Ulrich Obrist, Fashion Revolution co-founder Orsola de Castro, and Beyond Noise Sustainability Editor Marina Testino. Says Amber: “One reason for the age range was to leverage Art Partner’s friends and networks globally, to benefit young artists by exposing them to international press. It’s hard to make it as an artist, and we hope the contest can be a stepping stone for them.”

The intention truly at Earth Partner’s center, Amber goes on, is to “create a platform in service of the generation that will inherit this crisis.” She took inspiration from 2018’s Greta Thunberg-led school strikes: “These kids had nothing to do with creating this problem, and here they are trying to get our attention. We wanted to support that.”