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.
Abandoned
Glen Farley
Every year throughout the developed world we throw away thousands of tonnes of hazardous electronic and electrical waste. Less than half is recycled in a responsible manner. This e-waste ends up polluting land and sea, and injuring and killing plants, animals and people. When we throw away these computers, tablets and mobile phones, we also lose fragments of our lives. The photos, songs, films and documents stored on these devices are also discarded, abandoned. “Abandoned” consists of several moving elements. These, along with small lights and fans give the impression that these abandoned objects breathe and live. There is also a soundtrack with fragments from home videos and recordings, and a slide show on a discarded flat screen. Some of the photos in the slide show are of the enormous e-waste landfill sites in Africa and China used with permission from the Basel Action Network. Please watch this one-minute film: https://vimeo.com/91521370
Every year throughout the developed world we throw away thousands of tonnes of hazardous electronic and electrical waste. Less than half is recycled in a responsible manner. This e-waste ends up polluting land and sea, and injuring and killing plants, animals and people. When we throw away these computers, tablets and mobile phones, we also lose fragments of our lives. The photos, songs, films and documents stored on these devices are also discarded, abandoned. “Abandoned” consists of several moving elements. These, along with small lights and fans give the impression that these abandoned objects breathe and live. There is also a soundtrack with fragments from home videos and recordings, and a slide show on a discarded flat screen. Some of the photos in the slide show are of the enormous e-waste landfill sites in Africa and China used with permission from the Basel Action Network. Please watch this one-minute film: https://vimeo.com/91521370