SPRINTS x
TEDxSouthCentral
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.
Meet the awesome artists (from left to right): B. Stewart, Darius Turner, Lorenzo Diggins Jr., Lauren Levi, LP Ækili Ross, Marco Bernard (Masterminds Connect), Myjah Moon, Oston Jemba Madengue
Our event in the USA
In 2023, we partnered with TEDxSouthCentral (Los Angeles) – one of the most prominent TEDx events in the US. The amazing team of TEDxSouthCentral hand-picked a powerful group of 8 local visual artists, organized a creative bootcamp, discussion, and a public exhibition, and curated and produced the great collection below.
The artists, who embarked the a 48-hour creative sprint, initially presented their finished works as part of the TEDxSouthCentral Salon on Climate Justice in September 2023. The program began with every artist talking about their work, each piece a visual narrative of their personal experiences with environmental challenges.
What made this event truly remarkable was the dialogue that followed the art presentations. The artists, visibly moved by the raw and honest feedback from the audience, encouraged an open exchange of ideas and emotions. Attendees were invited to share their thoughts, reflecting on how climate issues had touched their own lives and communities.
The works were additionally showcased as a pop-up exhibit during the main TEDxSouthCentral conference in October 2023.
The Bootcamp & Exhibition
Reflections
“Through their art, the artists unveiled the complex web of consequences that climate change and systemic issues have woven into the fabric of their lives. With every stroke of the brush or layer of mixed media, they shared stories of displacement, loss, and adaptation.”
“What made this event truly remarkable was the dialogue that followed the art presentations. The artists, visibly moved by the raw and honest feedback from the audience, encouraged an open exchange of ideas and emotions. Attendees were invited to share their thoughts, reflecting on how climate issues had touched their own lives and communities.”
“In the midst of this collective conversation, a shared sense of understanding and empathy emerged. Artists expressed their profound surprise at the deep emotions and realizations that had emerged through their work. Their creative endeavor had connected them not only with their own experiences but also with the shared struggles of those around them.”
