CAREC

Cultural & Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis (CAREC) brings together up to 9 mid-career artists and cultural practitioners from around the world in a year-long interdisciplinary programme with a focus on climate justice and the connection between the climate crisis and the social, racial, and environmental issues in which it is entangled. 

Fellows receive €10,000 to invest in the further growth of their practice, engaging their communities, proposing inventive solutions, and imagining alternative futures.

Discover previous editions

CAREC Fellows

Our CAREC Fellows hail from all over the world and work in a variety of disciplines, from architecture, photography and visual arts to biotech, sound art and research, with most Fellows working across multiple disciplines. 

Dive into the publications

Each Cycle of CAREC concludes with a joint collective publication, showcasing the participants’ shared reflections and work.

Structure

The programme begins with an introductory session where participants present themselves and the work they will develop. It continues with online “chapters” co-curated by Senior Fellows featuring workshops, guest talks, reading groups, one in-person meeting, and one-on-one sessions dedicated to the each participants’ practices and goals. The programme ends with a collaborative project.

Themes

The programme fosters community-based practices that address different pressing environmental issues through decolonising imagination, engaging with indigenous and seasonal ways of living, or reexamining history.

Often locally rooted but speaking to the global challenges humanity is facing in the climate crisis, CAREC provides opportunities for engaged creatives to collectively build alternative ways of co-existing with our environment.

Eligibility

We welcome applications from individuals who have ±7-15 years of relevant professional experience and whose individual practice relates to visual art, curation, writing, music, performance, design, architecture, and more. Individuals who are arts managers, facilitators, academic researchers, or others, without an individual artistic practice, do not fall under this category, and as such are not eligible to apply.

Eligible applicants must be from, live, and work in our eligible countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.

Goethe-Institut partnership

Between 2018 – 2020, we partnered with the Goethe-Institut and issued three cycles of the Cultural & Artistic Responses to Environmental Change mentorship programme, supporting a total of 54 exceptional projects from around the world, each with a different disciplinary approach and addressing a range of pressing environmental issues.

Between 2021 – 2023, the collaboration evolved into the Fellows Award Cultural & Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis, with a renewed name and yearly cohorts of 12 mid-career artists. From calls for applications to Lab Weeks and other CAREC activities, Goethe-Institut was our close and trusted partner and collaborator.

From 2024 onwards, CAREC is run solely by the Prince Claus Fund.

Do you have any questions about CAREC?

You can always reach out to Victoria Harari, our Programmes Manager.