In the spirit of harnessing the power of art to raise environmental awareness and inspire direct action, the 16th edition of the International Poster Biennial (website), has announced a call for entries, inviting artists to submit posters under six categories, one of which is devoted to environmental issues.
The call for entries has been extended to 15 June 2020.
For the past 30 years, around 70,000 posters from five continents have been submitted to this exhibition, which takes place in Mexico City. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has partnered with the Biennial since 1990 to sponsor the environmental category.
This year’s edition will be devoted to biodiversity, which is the theme of World Environment Day 2020 (WED), the largest UN platform for environmental public outreach, celebrated annually on 5 June. Colombia will host the World Environment Day 2020 celebrations.
Contemporary artists from all over the world have participated in the International Poster Biennial, using their tools and creativity to describe our planet’s challenges in a way that feels relevant and urgent, and is often uncomfortable and difficult to ignore.
Some of the pressing environmental issues artists participating in the contest have addressed include, among others, biodiversity; plastic pollution; global warming; green economy and the reduction of food’s carbon footprint. In the last edition of the contest, 1,645 posters were submitted to the environmental category. The Chinese designer Yongkang Fu won first place for his piece “Living Space”, which powerfully evoked the harmful impact of plastic pollution on marine life.
