SPRINTS x
TEDxSeoul

Use these awesome visuals.
Act for climate now.

About SPRINTS

Countdown, TED’s initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, and Fine Acts – a global creative studio for social impact, joined forces to kick off a series of SPRINTS creative bootcamps on climate change around the world. The goal: to engage artists to envision what a better climate future looks like. Today, this has grown into an extraordinary global collaboration with 20 TEDx events, collectively hosting 22 SPRINTS.

SPRINTS is an original format, developed by Fine Acts – a creative bootcamp where visual artists are briefed on a topic by experts, and then have 48 hours to produce an artwork on that specific issue. Throughout the process, artists are supported by a pool of mentors. Each edition of SPRINTS also ends with a public pop-up exhibition.

Furthermore, all visuals are published under an open license, so that activists, nonprofits, movements and educators globally can use and adapt them in their work towards climate action.

In 2023/2024, we collaborated with 13 events, hand picked by the TEDx Program. We supported the amazing TEDx teams to select awesome local visual artists, organize effective creative bootcamps and inspiring public exhibitions, and curate a host of brilliant illustration collections.

As a result, hundreds of new artworks joined our unique Artists for Climate vault with open-licensed visuals on climate change. Selected works were also featured on Fine Acts’ global platform for free socially-engaged art – TheGreats.co, where they joined The Climate Collection, an invaluable public resource with a distinct focus on hope & solutions.

Our event in South Korea

In 2023, we partnered with TEDxSeoul – one of the most prominent TEDx events in South Korea. The amazing team of TEDxSeoul hand-picked a powerful group of 10 local visual artists, organized a creative bootcamp and a public exhibition, and curated and produced the brilliant collection below.

The majority of artists in this edition of SPRINTS hadn't worked on climate change before. In the end, all of them were proud to have contributed to changing people's minds about the topic, share the organizers.

The exhibition venue KOTE is located in a very multicultural center in Seoul. The exhibition was on for 7 days. For the opening the organizers invited a number of prominent guests - from organizations, working on climate, to diplomats, including the British Deputy Ambassador. The event was very engaging, with the artists presenting their works. Visitors shared that climate change is often a very dark topic, but the works gave them real hope. According to the organizers, in general, perception of climate change is rather low in South Korea, and people don't perceive it as a "crisis" – but the event really sparked a conversation on the topic.

*Meet the awesome artists (from left to right): Gang In Lee, Yuri Hyun, Jiho Yun, Joon Hee Myung, Min Jeong Lee (Eomju), Minha Yoo, Kim Wooyoung , Narae Kim, Yelin Yi, Youri Choi*

The Bootcamp & Exhibition

Reflections

“The artists really liked each other. It was very exciting to see them so happy to meet each other. That’s my favorite part, to see them connecting.”

— Jessica Choi, Director, TEDxSeoul

“Art has the power to instill hope and imagination in people. And this SPRINT project provided an opportunity that clearly highlighted the importance of art for addressing climate change. The format plays a crucial role in emphasizing the importance of utilizing art for climate change advocacy. And it provided the artists with a valuable platform to amplify their messages and serve as a powerful reminder of the impact that art can have on social and environmental issues. We had a wonderful experience. It was a great opportunity to work with you and we and the artists were excited to make this happen.”

— David Choo, organizer, TEDxSeoul

“Usually when we hear climate change, it sounds very dark because we can’t do anything about it. But the visitors really liked the exhibition, as it gave them such hope.”

— Hyeseon Do, Partnership Manager, TEDxSeoul