The European Marine Board (EMB) is looking for two new artists for the 2025 – 2026 edition of our ‘EMBracing the Ocean’ artist-in-residence programme. As we enter the fourth year of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, the need to connect people to our Ocean is more important than ever. The EMBracing the Ocean programme provides 10,000 euro grants for creative individuals/groups from a wide range of disciplines to engage in a two-way co-creation of artwork in collaboration with Ocean scientists.
The aims of the programme are to:
- raise societal awareness of and embrace connection to the Ocean;
- inspire positive behaviour towards sustainability;
- and contributing new insight and/or perspectives to science.
The programme is open to creative individuals/groups from a wide variety of artistic disciplines. Both emerging and established artists will be considered by the committee. Prior experience in co-creation with scientists and/or communities and working on sustainability topics is desirable. Applications are welcome from across the world, and from a wide range of creative disciplines, including but not limited to:
- visual arts (e.g. drawing, painting, filmmaking, photography, sculpting, digital arts, installation art);
- literary arts (e.g. fiction, drama, poetry, storytelling);
- performing arts (e.g. dance, music, theatre);
- traditional and indigenous arts.
More information on the call and how to apply is available on the EMB website: https://www.marineboard.eu/open-calls. Artists and scientists looking for collaborators to develop proposals with can post on the Ocean Decade art-science networking group. For any questions please email Britt Alexander at the EMB Secretariat (balexander@marineboard.eu).
The EMBracing the Ocean programme is endorsed as an Ocean Decade activity to support the Ocean Decade’s societal challenge of an inspiring and engaging Ocean. The programme additionally supports the goals of the EU Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters.
