Prix COAL 2017

"The COAL association is pleased to announce the names of the ten finalists of the COAL Art and Environment Prize 2017! 

The 2017 COAL Award will be awarded on 29 November 2017 by the Ministry of Culture during a ceremony organized at the Museum of Hunting and Nature [in Paris]. The event is part of a day dedicated to Art, Culture and Biodiversity organized at the Museum of Hunting and Nature by the Ministry of Culture, the Museum of Hunting and Nature, COAL, the French Center of Funds and Foundations and the French Agency for Biodiversity. 

In seven editions, the COAL Prize has become the international rendezvous for artists who are taking over the main universal issue of our time: ecology. This year again, nearly 350 artists from 66 countries representing the six continents competed as part of an international call for projects. The ten nominated artists were selected for the aesthetic qualities of their proposals, their relevance to environmental issues, their inventiveness, their ability to transmit and transform, and their social and participatory approach. Together, they demonstrate how creation, in its diversity of forms and actions, is a key force in shaping the future of our societies.

The finalist artists of the 8th edition of the COAL Prize are

• Erich Berger and Mari Keto (Austria, Finland) - INHERITANCE - The Ritual of Measurement
• Isabelle Daëron (France) - Topical - unsafe water 
• Abdessamad El Montassir (Morocco) - Resistance to Nature 
• Anne Fischer (France) - Rising from its Ashes 
• The Valley ( France) - Pietra P. 
• Martin The Chevallier (France) - Scheduled obsolescence 
• The New Ministry of Agriculture (France) - New local products. Diamond Gnetton 
• Mendel (South Africa) - Drowning World 
• Afour Rhizome (South Korea) - This wind you are talking about takes us far from ourselves 
• Anaïs Tondeur (France) - Carbon black

The global ecological crisis now affects all societies, territories and activities, whether through climate change, the scarcity of resources, various types of pollution or the erosion of biodiversity. A global crisis that intertwines with its economic and social consequences. But this crisis is also a cultural crisis. The dominant values ​​and representations, our globalized culture, determine our individual and collective behaviors, and ultimately our collective impacts on the planet. Also, the solutions to this crisis cannot only be political and technical. Culture can be a major player. This is what COAL has been promoting since it was founded in 2008. The COAL Award is aimed at all artists who, throughout the world, witness, imagine and experiment with solutions for the transformation of territories, lifestyles and organizations, and modes of production. Together, they are helping to build a new collective narrative, a new imaginary, common heritage under development, a positive, optimistic and necessary framework for everyone to find the means and the motivation to implement the necessary changes towards a more sustainable and just world."

See the winning artists and learn more here.