PUBLIC ART IN RESPONSE TO THE CLIMATE CRISiS
GLOBAL DAY OF CREATIVE ACTION
13 December, 2025
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Creative Uprising: Art in the Face of Climate Crisis
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Creative Uprising: Art in the Face of Climate Crisis
Ten years ago, 195 nations gathered in Paris and made a promise. They committed to limiting global temperature rise to well below 2°C. They drafted policy frameworks and set targets. They returned home and went back to business.
But what about the rest of us? The communities already living the consequences. The artists witnessing, surviving, innovating. The people who never got a seat at those tables but are paying the price for decisions made without them.
On 12 December 2025, we're marking the 10-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement from the ground-up with our third global eruption of creative action.
We're taking the conversation out of the UN headquarters and into the streets, the coastlines, the forests, the neighbourhoods where climate disruption is already reshaping lives.
This is the Global Day of Creative Action. And we need you.
But what about the rest of us? The communities already living the consequences. The artists witnessing, surviving, innovating. The people who never got a seat at those tables but are paying the price for decisions made without them.
On 12 December 2025, we're marking the 10-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement from the ground-up with our third global eruption of creative action.
We're taking the conversation out of the UN headquarters and into the streets, the coastlines, the forests, the neighbourhoods where climate disruption is already reshaping lives.
This is the Global Day of Creative Action. And we need you.
2 global events
158 artworks
34 Countries
1.5M eyeballs
What is it?
For 24 hours, creatives and activists worldwide will mobilise in their communities to create, present and document public responses to climate disruption; Small and large, real works exploring what's happening in your place, to your people, in your ecosystem.
The initiative particularly focuses on creatives from Climate Vulnerable Forum member countries, but it is open to all, worldwide.
Participants document the work in real-time on-the-ground over a global 24 hours.
The Outcomes:
Works are amplified on social media, a virtual exhibition, zine, a micro documentary, and mapping - discovering how thee localised impacts connect to a global understanding of climate disruption and climate justice.
Your local action becomes part of a global story.
The initiative particularly focuses on creatives from Climate Vulnerable Forum member countries, but it is open to all, worldwide.
Participants document the work in real-time on-the-ground over a global 24 hours.
The Outcomes:
Works are amplified on social media, a virtual exhibition, zine, a micro documentary, and mapping - discovering how thee localised impacts connect to a global understanding of climate disruption and climate justice.
Your local action becomes part of a global story.
The Artworks
Works can be any form of creative expression that's relevant to you, and your community! All creative practices welcome: street art, performance, sculpture, sound, film, digital interventions, writing, spoken word, songs, posters, immersive installations. Work that doesn't just sit there but pulls people in, makes them feel, makes them see differently.
And, if you're not a confident creative, we have an open source artwork you can sign up for!
You don't need to be a professional artist, you just need to want to use creativity to raise awareness, inspire, and help imagine solutions.
And, if you're not a confident creative, we have an open source artwork you can sign up for!
You don't need to be a professional artist, you just need to want to use creativity to raise awareness, inspire, and help imagine solutions.
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Environmentalists are good at bar graphs and statistical tables--and those certainly prove the ever-growing danger of the climate crisis. But that's only half of the human brain--we also need art and music to reach our more visceral core. That's why this new initiative from Micro Galleries is so vital!
There Are Four Ways To Get Involved
Pick the pathway that is best for you, your community, and your resources.
- OPEN ACTIONBring climate awareness to life in your local community through any creative practice you choose. Whether it's a mural, performance, installation, nature journal walk, projection, workshop, reading, or something we haven't imagined yet—if it's public, free, addresses local climate realities and/or imagines solutions, it belongs here.Register for Open Action
Your work should:- Address locally-relevant climate disruption and community impacts
- Be educational, or solutions-focused, and engaging, no apocalyptic narratives here!
- Take place in a public space
- Be free and accessible to all
- OPEN SOURCEJoin a worldwide network of creators bringing Chad Rea's (from Cult of Happy) open source work to life in communities everywhere. We provide al the information on what you need to make it happen: materials lists, step-by-step instructions, and video tutorials.Register for Open Source
What you receive:- Complete instructional package (digital download)
- Materials guide
- Video tutorials and troubleshooting support
- Documentation templates for sharing your version
The artwork is currently in development and will be released soon. Register to be the first to know what the artwork is! - CLIMATE STORIESWhat's happening where you live? What are you witnessing, experiencing, surviving, or fighting for? Share your community's climate story in 500 words or less.Register For Climate Stories
Stories might explore:- Changing weather patterns and seasonal disruptions
- Ecosystem and biodiversity loss you're observing
- Community resilience and adaptation strategies
- Climate justice issues in your area
- Intergenerational knowledge and traditional practices under threat
- Solutions emerging from grassroots organising
- Featured on the GDCA website for global download
- Select works will be included in our digital GDCA Zine
- Part of our online exhibition connecting climate voices worldwide
- CLIMATE COLLABLIMITED TO 20 PARTICIPANTS / 10 PARTNERSHIPS WORLDWIDEApply for Climate Collab
Be matched with another artist from across the globe for a radical act of creative exchange and collaboration. Over four weeks, you'll learn about each other's communities, climate realities, and creative practices, then co-create an artwork displayed simultaneously in both your locations during GDCA.
The Process:- 30-31 October: Artist pairing and initial exchange (climate stories, practices, contexts)
- 5 November - 5 December: Collaborative concept development via video calls, voice notes, shared documents
- December 6 - 12: Develop real-life work, ready for public viewing/experience
- December 13: Simultaneous display/performance/activation in both locations
- Documentation: Shared storytelling about the collaboration and what you learned
- Openness to creative partnership and cultural exchange
- Commitment to regular communication (accommodating time zones)
- Willingness to share resources, knowledge, and creative vulnerability
- Ability to create and document work by mid-December
- Genuine curiosity about climate impacts beyond your own experience
Applications close: 27 October, 2025
Partnerships announced: 30 October, 2025
Exchange language: English. This doesn't mean you need to be fluent in English. We have had successful projects run via Google Translate. You simply need the willingness to try, and to accommodate others across the cultural and language divide.
Creative Uprising: Art in the Face of Climate Crisis
Who is the GDCA For?
This is a free public art movement, for everyone.
- Artists and Creatives of ALL PracticesThe work can be ANYTHING: mural, performance, installation, a reading, a poster, projection mapping, music – anything you want to contribute that creates positive input - for you, your community, and the global community. The only requirement? It must be public and free.
- Not a Professional Artist ? Not a Problem.Creatively-minded community members are welcome to sign up! Again, any creative contribution to educating and solving the climate crisis is welcome. The only requirement? It must be public and free.
- Want To Contribute But Don't Have an Idea? We've Got You!A Micro Galleries artist will create an open-source, simple but powerful public installation with a "how to" pack that you can easily present, so anyone can be an artist! Just sign up, download all the information, and see the video installation guide.
- You Have A Space You Want To Make Available?OK, so you're not creative but you have a wall, a corner, a space, a corner pocket of grass you want to make available? BRILLIANT! Register your space and we will collate a list for the public.
- I Have No Time But I Have $$We would love to sponsor more artists and groups from under-resourced communities to be involved. If you have money you would like to contribute and make this happen, let us know.
How it works
October: Creative Response Callout
We conduct an active open-call for participants to register their location, and intended creative response
October - December: Plan, Design, Prepare
Participants lodge details of their work; MG provides supporting tools such as media kits, how-to guides, documentation guides and planning guides.
November - December: Shout About It
All registered participants and public spaces for the Day are promoted and mapped, accessible to the public.
13 December: 24 Hours of Artworks
From Fiji to Hawaii, participants install/present/perform their works, MG features every work online as it's happening and collects the documentation.
December - February: Documentation and Mapping
MG collects and collates all the documentation for online exhibitions, documentaries, features, as well as digital mapping of the works, and climate impacts being focused on.
February - March: Zine, Documentary, Mapping
All the juicy visuals and outcomes are packaged together in a zingin' zine, micro doco, and a map connecting everyone and everything climate.
But Why?
Listen up, because here's the no-BS truth about why your art matters more than ever:
Climate change isn't some far-off problem lurking in the distance – it's here, kicking down our doors and ransacking our lives. It's emptying our wallets today and planning to raid our savings tomorrow. But here's the plot twist that changes everything: we've got solutions right now, solutions that won't break the bank and could catapult us into a future that doesn't look like a disaster movie.
The science is crystal clear: if we get our act together NOW, we can slash carbon emissions in the next 12 years and keep global temperatures from spiralling out of control. We're talking about keeping that temperature rise under 2°C – or even better, 1.5°C if we really hustle.
We've got the Paris Agreement – this brilliant blueprint for saving our collective butts from climate chaos. And while America's withdrawal shook things up (insert eye roll here), it also sparked something incredible: cities, states, businesses, and citizens worldwide stepped up to fill the leadership void. Because here's the thing – this agreement? It's just expensive paper unless we actually DO something with it.
And that's where YOU come in, creative rebel. Your art? It's not just art. It's action. It's resistance. It's your way of grabbing the climate crisis by the collar and saying, "Not on my watch." When politicians step back, artists step up.
When you create for the Global Day of Creative Action, you're not just making pretty pictures – you're part of a worldwide creative army fighting for our future. You're joining a global movement that proves we don't need permission from governments to take action.
Trust me, we need your voice in this fight now more than ever.
Your turn to make some noise. What will you create?
Climate change isn't some far-off problem lurking in the distance – it's here, kicking down our doors and ransacking our lives. It's emptying our wallets today and planning to raid our savings tomorrow. But here's the plot twist that changes everything: we've got solutions right now, solutions that won't break the bank and could catapult us into a future that doesn't look like a disaster movie.
The science is crystal clear: if we get our act together NOW, we can slash carbon emissions in the next 12 years and keep global temperatures from spiralling out of control. We're talking about keeping that temperature rise under 2°C – or even better, 1.5°C if we really hustle.
We've got the Paris Agreement – this brilliant blueprint for saving our collective butts from climate chaos. And while America's withdrawal shook things up (insert eye roll here), it also sparked something incredible: cities, states, businesses, and citizens worldwide stepped up to fill the leadership void. Because here's the thing – this agreement? It's just expensive paper unless we actually DO something with it.
And that's where YOU come in, creative rebel. Your art? It's not just art. It's action. It's resistance. It's your way of grabbing the climate crisis by the collar and saying, "Not on my watch." When politicians step back, artists step up.
When you create for the Global Day of Creative Action, you're not just making pretty pictures – you're part of a worldwide creative army fighting for our future. You're joining a global movement that proves we don't need permission from governments to take action.
Trust me, we need your voice in this fight now more than ever.
Your turn to make some noise. What will you create?
The Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change.
The Paris Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015 at COP21, representing the most significant international climate accord in history.
This year marks the 10-year anniversary.
A decade ago, the Paris Agreement represented top-down commitment. Policy frameworks drafted in conference rooms. Targets set by diplomats and politicians.
Ten years later, we're asking: what's actually happened at ground level?
The Global Day of Creative Action on 12 December 2025 connects grassroots creative responses directly to the international policy framework that's supposed to be protecting us.
Whilst governments assess their progress against targets, we're demonstrating community-level reality. The local climate impacts people are experiencing. The solutions being innovated. The demands from frontlines.
This is progress measured differently. Not in policy documents, but in lived experience. Not top-down promises, but bottom-up action.
The Paris Agreement was their commitment to us.
The Global Day of Creative Action is ours to each other.
The Paris Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015 at COP21, representing the most significant international climate accord in history.
This year marks the 10-year anniversary.
A decade ago, the Paris Agreement represented top-down commitment. Policy frameworks drafted in conference rooms. Targets set by diplomats and politicians.
Ten years later, we're asking: what's actually happened at ground level?
The Global Day of Creative Action on 12 December 2025 connects grassroots creative responses directly to the international policy framework that's supposed to be protecting us.
Whilst governments assess their progress against targets, we're demonstrating community-level reality. The local climate impacts people are experiencing. The solutions being innovated. The demands from frontlines.
This is progress measured differently. Not in policy documents, but in lived experience. Not top-down promises, but bottom-up action.
The Paris Agreement was their commitment to us.
The Global Day of Creative Action is ours to each other.
“
Climate disruption art makes the biggest threat to our existence a cultural reality and provides a way for us to include the voices of the most vulnerable communities around the world.
Locations
We've had two iterations of the program.
GDCA // 2019
On 21 September, during the 2019 U.N Youth and the U.N Climate Action Summit, Micro Galleries instigated our first Global Day of Creative Action.
To our shock, amazement and excitement, over 90 works across 27 different countries/states around the world generated new creative expression of, and innovative solutions to the climate crisis. It had an online reach of 190,000 people who engaged directly with the content, over 300 people helped create the works, over 5,000 people saw, participated, asked questions of the works from around the world. Yep. Nearly 200,000 people directly connected with this concept in one form or another.
This project was supported by The Ministry of Culture, Peru, and Jason Stephenson.
On 21 September, during the 2019 U.N Youth and the U.N Climate Action Summit, Micro Galleries instigated our first Global Day of Creative Action.
To our shock, amazement and excitement, over 90 works across 27 different countries/states around the world generated new creative expression of, and innovative solutions to the climate crisis. It had an online reach of 190,000 people who engaged directly with the content, over 300 people helped create the works, over 5,000 people saw, participated, asked questions of the works from around the world. Yep. Nearly 200,000 people directly connected with this concept in one form or another.
This project was supported by The Ministry of Culture, Peru, and Jason Stephenson.
A full 5-part micro docu-series on the project and outcomes
GDCA / 2021
6 November, 2021
Our second iteration in 2021. This one had a twist as we were mid-COVID so we exoanded how you could participate.
1. Create a public creative response
2. Register to install our open-source project
3. If in rigid lockdown or due to COVID-safety, digital responses can be submitted this year AND and we even had a team standing by to help make these where needed
6 November, 2021
Our second iteration in 2021. This one had a twist as we were mid-COVID so we exoanded how you could participate.
1. Create a public creative response
2. Register to install our open-source project
3. If in rigid lockdown or due to COVID-safety, digital responses can be submitted this year AND and we even had a team standing by to help make these where needed
Wrap Reel
Or...