Art to save the planet: the #CreateCOP prize returns

An oil slick in Peru rendered in stark monochrome images; a wild forest fire in India, a young boy desperately swatting at it with a branch; a businessman, resigned to the ever-rising water levels, donning wellies to go to work. These are just some of the striking images and multimedia projects that have been rewarded by creative agency Art Partner since it founded its #CreateCOP prize in 2019, hoping to raise awareness of COP, the annual United Nations Climate Change conference. Now in its fourth edition, the competition is an open call (starting 27 June) to all photographers and artists aged between 14 and 30. The aim, says Art Partner’s co-founder and CEO Giovanni Testino, is “to give voice to a young generation of creatives who have inherited a planet that is in serious trouble”. 

This is not Art Partner’s first foray in this sphere. In 2015, the creative agency launched #ClimateCatwalk, an Instagram initiative petitioning for change; in 2017 it was certified carbon-neutral. “We had incredible support from the fashion community but we are also very aware that our industry is a serious part of the problem,” admits Testino, who is photographer Mario’s brother. So far the#CreateCOP prize, founded by Art Partner’s director and senior agent Amber Olson, has received submissions from more than 100 countries, including China, India, Ghana and Peru, while “the topics addressed have an incredible breadth,” he says, “from the population crisis and corporate irresponsibility to plastic proliferation and climate-related natural disasters. I think they are an incredible testament to how complex and multilayered the crisis is.”

Last year’s winner, the Peruvian Lizeth Lozano Palomino, created a moving project examining a vast oil spill north of Lima that heavily affected both the country’s population and the local marine ecosystem. It was “the largest ecological disaster in my country”, says Lozano Palomino, who works as a nurse in Tenerife. She was inspired to create it after watching the movie Erin Brockovich. But “the difference with my project is that the problem has not yet been solved”, says Lozano Palomino, who is working on a new piece for the next competition. “The hydrocarbon is still on the surface [of the water], and the inhabitants do not have the necessary resources to continue this fight.”

“Our hope is to give northern-hemisphere platforms to southern hemisphere voices, which are often under-represented, as well as disproportionately and adversely affected,” says Testino, who is Peruvian too. The prizes are also, he adds, just a great showcase for new young talent, complete with cash prizes.

For Nicholas Bennett, whose project showed a man in a suit wearing wellies, as though starting his morning commute, a prize like this is “very rare. It allowed me space to be critical and explorative with my work”. Bennett got the idea from his native Yorkshire, which is subject to volatile flooding. The recognition from the prize – he was the winner in 2019 – “allowed me to get involved in my friends’ projects, like one about contaminated water sources and another about foraging for clay”.

Testino has often been surprised and touched by the entries, whether it’s the sharp irony of Bennett’s picture or the beauty of the work of 2021’s first prize winner, Camila Jaber, who filmed herself free-diving in the cenotes of Tulum. What do he and the jury look for in a winner? 

“I look for work that evokes emotion,” he replies. “I look for a perspective or experience that is different from my own.” He then cites another entrant, whose work reflected on how women now have to consider whether having children contributes to the problem of overpopulation. “I had simply never considered this,” he says, “and it has stayed with me ever since.”

Applications for #CreateCOP open Tuesday 27 June; enter via artpartner.com