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.
Wonder Theater of the Sea
nanjun_ge
This project is based on the concept of a"digital Wunderkammer"; and explores the theme of the ocean through historical marine life depicted in the Wunderkammer books of “Schloss Gottorf”. The exhibition presents a collage-like narrative animation that weaves together corals, fish, algae, historical illustrations, documentary footage, and my voice. By merging historical archives with digital simulations, it creates new dimensions of time and space, showcasing the dynamic transformations of the ocean. While traditional “Wunderkammern” preserved specimens in a static manner, the digital realm endows "collection" with fluidity and vitality. To some extent, the project also challenges the traditional Wunderkammer concept and seeks a more open artistic expression, encouraging the audience to reflect on the digital ocean, posthumanism, and power structures. At its core, the exhibition portrays the ocean as a repository of memories—memories that no longer rely on physical objects but exist as a collection of images, sounds, and data. However, in reality, marine ecosystems are rapidly disappearing, and many of the organisms depicted in the exhibition may no longer exist in the future. Today, "collecting" is not just about preservation; it is also about protection, warning, and reflection.
This project is based on the concept of a"digital Wunderkammer"; and explores the theme of the ocean through historical marine life depicted in the Wunderkammer books of “Schloss Gottorf”. The exhibition presents a collage-like narrative animation that weaves together corals, fish, algae, historical illustrations, documentary footage, and my voice. By merging historical archives with digital simulations, it creates new dimensions of time and space, showcasing the dynamic transformations of the ocean. While traditional “Wunderkammern” preserved specimens in a static manner, the digital realm endows "collection" with fluidity and vitality. To some extent, the project also challenges the traditional Wunderkammer concept and seeks a more open artistic expression, encouraging the audience to reflect on the digital ocean, posthumanism, and power structures. At its core, the exhibition portrays the ocean as a repository of memories—memories that no longer rely on physical objects but exist as a collection of images, sounds, and data. However, in reality, marine ecosystems are rapidly disappearing, and many of the organisms depicted in the exhibition may no longer exist in the future. Today, "collecting" is not just about preservation; it is also about protection, warning, and reflection.