The impact of the climate crisis is being experienced globally, affecting millions in various ways and magnitudes. Whilst the effects are increasingly apparent everywhere, it is the Global South that is disproportionally faced with the most extreme outcomes of our climate collapse – once again exposing the social and political inequalities entrenched within our societies.

The Mentorship Award for Cultural & Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis brings together 12 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 deeply entangled.

The group is supported by five mentors as well as their peers and work at accelerating their engaged community-based practices addressing environmental issues. The 2023 cohort is guided by scientist and gender diversity advocate Brigitte Baptiste; Etcétera Collective formed by Loreto Garín Guzman & Federico Zukerfeld ; artist and technologist Irene Agrivina; and architect and gardener Benji Boyadgian. This year’s participants work in a variety of disciplines, from architecture, photography, and visual arts to biotech, sound art, and research, with most spanning multiple practices.

The group hails from 12 different countries, including Algeria, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mozambique, Palestine and South Africa.