Welcome to the Social Art Award 2025 – Online Gallery!
We are grateful for the many powerful contributions from artists across the globe. The selected works reflect the diversity of contemporary social art practices and address urgent issues such as climate and water crises, social and economic inequality, migration, conflict, discrimination, and the protection of human and more-than-human life.
Below you will find the submissions from the edition of 2024/2025 that passed the initial jury round. The Online Gallery offers public visibility to these works and supports dialogue around their themes; it does not replace the final jury decision.
Thank you to all artists for sharing your inspiring and committed work. We invite you to explore the gallery and engage with the perspectives shaping the Social Art Award 2025.
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Machangara of mint Artistic research-creation...
175
Title:
Machangara of mint Artistic research-creation...
Machangara of mint Artistic research-creation...
Author:
Ricardo Cabrera Zambrano
Ricardo Cabrera Zambrano
Description:
In the globalized world in which we live, there is a great separation between human beings and nature, two concepts that, instead of being distanced, should have a reciprocal and autonomous relationship in favor of life. The central proposal of this project is to rethink the relationship we have with the environment as an inhabited and shared space, specifically with the Machángara River in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The sensorial and reflexive process is an important part of this analysis, therefore, as a starting point, I seek to hold on spiritually to the idea of reciprocity with the environment, taken from the Andean cosmovision as a structure of thought that implements the relationships between species in a reciprocal way within the environment they inhabit. Due to its geographic position, the city of Quito has spread between volcanoes, streams and rivers, and the ecosystems that cross the city are part of the same ecology shared by different human and non-human species. Ideally, the dialogue between all of them would allow an equitable and balanced development of the environment, however, several natural spaces in the city have become garbage dumps, a sanitary problem that is intensified by the little attention paid to the management of waste deposited in the river and the lack of education of a population that has stopped living in a respectful and reciprocal way with its environment. Through the proposed art project, I try to understand the different problems generated by the tensions exerted in this conflictive relationship between the Quiteño community and the river. I seek to communicate the deficiency and incapacity of Quito's society to reach a reconciliation with the river, to stop normalizing its contamination and to be able to promote a sustainable and beneficial environment for all its species. Installation 124 cups with water from the river Machángara and 56 mint plants. 10 x 1 x 1.10 m (table with cups).
In the globalized world in which we live, there is a great separation between human beings and nature, two concepts that, instead of being distanced, should have a reciprocal and autonomous relationship in favor of life. The central proposal of this project is to rethink the relationship we have with the environment as an inhabited and shared space, specifically with the Machángara River in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The sensorial and reflexive process is an important part of this analysis, therefore, as a starting point, I seek to hold on spiritually to the idea of reciprocity with the environment, taken from the Andean cosmovision as a structure of thought that implements the relationships between species in a reciprocal way within the environment they inhabit. Due to its geographic position, the city of Quito has spread between volcanoes, streams and rivers, and the ecosystems that cross the city are part of the same ecology shared by different human and non-human species. Ideally, the dialogue between all of them would allow an equitable and balanced development of the environment, however, several natural spaces in the city have become garbage dumps, a sanitary problem that is intensified by the little attention paid to the management of waste deposited in the river and the lack of education of a population that has stopped living in a respectful and reciprocal way with its environment. Through the proposed art project, I try to understand the different problems generated by the tensions exerted in this conflictive relationship between the Quiteño community and the river. I seek to communicate the deficiency and incapacity of Quito's society to reach a reconciliation with the river, to stop normalizing its contamination and to be able to promote a sustainable and beneficial environment for all its species. Installation 124 cups with water from the river Machángara and 56 mint plants. 10 x 1 x 1.10 m (table with cups).
Description:
In the globalized world in which we live, there is a great separation between human beings and nature, two concepts that, instead of being distanced, should have a reciprocal and autonomous relationship in favor of life. The central proposal of this project is to rethink the relationship we have with the environment as an inhabited and shared space, specifically with the Machángara River in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The sensorial and reflexive process is an important part of this analysis, therefore, as a starting point, I seek to hold on spiritually to the idea of reciprocity with the environment, taken from the Andean cosmovision as a structure of thought that implements the relationships between species in a reciprocal way within the environment they inhabit. Due to its geographic position, the city of Quito has spread between volcanoes, streams and rivers, and the ecosystems that cross the city are part of the same ecology shared by different human and non-human species. Ideally, the dialogue between all of them would allow an equitable and balanced development of the environment, however, several natural spaces in the city have become garbage dumps, a sanitary problem that is intensified by the little attention paid to the management of waste deposited in the river and the lack of education of a population that has stopped living in a respectful and reciprocal way with its environment. Through the proposed art project, I try to understand the different problems generated by the tensions exerted in this conflictive relationship between the Quiteño community and the river. I seek to communicate the deficiency and incapacity of Quito's society to reach a reconciliation with the river, to stop normalizing its contamination and to be able to promote a sustainable and beneficial environment for all its species. Installation 124 cups with water from the river Machángara and 56 mint plants. 10 x 1 x 1.10 m (table with cups).
In the globalized world in which we live, there is a great separation between human beings and nature, two concepts that, instead of being distanced, should have a reciprocal and autonomous relationship in favor of life. The central proposal of this project is to rethink the relationship we have with the environment as an inhabited and shared space, specifically with the Machángara River in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The sensorial and reflexive process is an important part of this analysis, therefore, as a starting point, I seek to hold on spiritually to the idea of reciprocity with the environment, taken from the Andean cosmovision as a structure of thought that implements the relationships between species in a reciprocal way within the environment they inhabit. Due to its geographic position, the city of Quito has spread between volcanoes, streams and rivers, and the ecosystems that cross the city are part of the same ecology shared by different human and non-human species. Ideally, the dialogue between all of them would allow an equitable and balanced development of the environment, however, several natural spaces in the city have become garbage dumps, a sanitary problem that is intensified by the little attention paid to the management of waste deposited in the river and the lack of education of a population that has stopped living in a respectful and reciprocal way with its environment. Through the proposed art project, I try to understand the different problems generated by the tensions exerted in this conflictive relationship between the Quiteño community and the river. I seek to communicate the deficiency and incapacity of Quito's society to reach a reconciliation with the river, to stop normalizing its contamination and to be able to promote a sustainable and beneficial environment for all its species. Installation 124 cups with water from the river Machángara and 56 mint plants. 10 x 1 x 1.10 m (table with cups).