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.
Keys to Open the Beginning Before the End
Beth Krensky
Everything passes and everything stays, but our thing is to pass, pass by making paths, paths over the sea. Antonio Machado, Proverbs and Songs, 1912 Long before humans inhabited the earth, primeval oceans existed. The elemental force of water has both sustained living beings and has shaped the ground upon which we stand. This piece contains keys to unlock our memories and connections to the beginning of our own, or planetary, time. The piece both references and was created by the ancient force of water. The keys are composed of bits of organic detritus that once lived in various oceans. The pieces of sea fans, coral, and plant life have been smoothed by the tides and sand. These elements are combined with antique skeleton keys through an electroplating process. They are a reminder to us of what has come before our species and what may be there after our demise. Scientific data supports that we are in the middle of a 6th mass extinction on earth due to the actions of humans. Perhaps these keys can open our connection to the seas so that we might save them, and us. 1. Rosenberg, K. et. al. (2019) Decline of North American Avifauna, In Science, 19 Sep 2019 • Vol 366, Issue 6461 • pp. 120-124
Everything passes and everything stays, but our thing is to pass, pass by making paths, paths over the sea. Antonio Machado, Proverbs and Songs, 1912 Long before humans inhabited the earth, primeval oceans existed. The elemental force of water has both sustained living beings and has shaped the ground upon which we stand. This piece contains keys to unlock our memories and connections to the beginning of our own, or planetary, time. The piece both references and was created by the ancient force of water. The keys are composed of bits of organic detritus that once lived in various oceans. The pieces of sea fans, coral, and plant life have been smoothed by the tides and sand. These elements are combined with antique skeleton keys through an electroplating process. They are a reminder to us of what has come before our species and what may be there after our demise. Scientific data supports that we are in the middle of a 6th mass extinction on earth due to the actions of humans. Perhaps these keys can open our connection to the seas so that we might save them, and us. 1. Rosenberg, K. et. al. (2019) Decline of North American Avifauna, In Science, 19 Sep 2019 • Vol 366, Issue 6461 • pp. 120-124