The project
This open call is part of CARE – a cross-European initiative built on the belief that arts and culture play a vital role in shaping how we understand and respond to climate change. Climate change is not only an environmental or scientific issue – it is also cultural, emotional, and social. While research provides evidence and advocacy drives policy, art can translate complex realities into human stories that connect, inspire, and mobilise. CARE sees visual art as a bridge:

• between data and emotion

• between individual experience and collective action

• between apathy and agency

The topic
Climate change is often communicated through statistics, warnings, and stories of crisis. While these narratives are important, they can also leave people feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or powerless. Researchers increasingly document climate anxiety – feelings of fear, grief, uncertainty, and distress about environmental change. Young people are particularly affected, with many reporting deep concern about the future. According to the IPCC, climate-related uncertainty and extreme events are contributing to rising levels of anxiety, stress, grief, and trauma.In addition, much of popular culture portrays the future through dystopian visions – flooded cities, environmental collapse, social breakdown, and technological control. While these narratives reflect real concerns, they often limit our ability to imagine the futures we want to build. Research shows that when people struggle to envision positive futures, they are less likely to believe change is possible, whereas hopeful visions can increase motivation, participation, and support for climate action.Yet we don’t need to look far for such inspiration. Across Europe and beyond, communities are already responding to rising temperatures, extreme weather, and environmental uncertainty through adaptation, advocacy, and collective climate action. These efforts are grounded in cooperation, solidarity, and care for people and places, and they demonstrate that meaningful change happens when diverse people & communities come together.The collection of illustrations we are building – both through this open call, as well as through a previous commissioned initiative – aims to explore new hopeful climate narratives that connect the realities of climate change with human experiences, collective action, and visions for the future.

Selection criteria
We are looking for existing illustrations that envision sustainable, just, and climate-positive futures, and the collective action needed to achieve them.

The illustrations we seek:

• Are hopeful;

• Show diversity of characters;

• Are not too cliched or too abstract.

• Are original, human-created works. While AI-assisted tools may be used as part of the creative process, AI-generated artworks are not eligible.

Eligible countries
Тhis project is open to artists from the following countries: the 27 EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and Tunisia.

Guidelines
Please only submit standard size ready-to-print posters: 50x70cm / 18”x24”, or 3:4 ratio. Posters should be high-resolution files – acceptable formats are EPS, PDF, PSD, AI, TIFF. Vector files are preferred, raster files should be at least 300+ PPI. You can submit up to 5 works.