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.
Fishermen of the Anthropocene
Yiannis Pappas
"Fishermen of the Anthropocene" reinterprets ancient Santorini frescoes, replacing fish with marine debris to highlight ocean pollution. Through performative photography, I collected and held discarded plastics and nets, mirroring traditional fishing gestures to confront viewers with environmental degradation. The image contrasts the serene seascape with the stark reality of waste, highlighting how human excesses disrupt natural cycles. Responding to the Planetary Healing theme, the work critiques systemic inaction on climate change and urges reflection on consumption and accountability. The work provokes dialogue about our ecological footprint, asking What are we harvesting from a depleted world? By transforming an iconic image of sustenance into a symbol of loss, the work calls for urgent action, recognising that while being 'green' is difficult, inaction is no longer an option.
"Fishermen of the Anthropocene" reinterprets ancient Santorini frescoes, replacing fish with marine debris to highlight ocean pollution. Through performative photography, I collected and held discarded plastics and nets, mirroring traditional fishing gestures to confront viewers with environmental degradation. The image contrasts the serene seascape with the stark reality of waste, highlighting how human excesses disrupt natural cycles. Responding to the Planetary Healing theme, the work critiques systemic inaction on climate change and urges reflection on consumption and accountability. The work provokes dialogue about our ecological footprint, asking What are we harvesting from a depleted world? By transforming an iconic image of sustenance into a symbol of loss, the work calls for urgent action, recognising that while being 'green' is difficult, inaction is no longer an option.