Artist Climate Action Residency
Calling all artists!
Are you a kamaʻāina artist?
Would you like to create work that inspires Hawai’i to meet the challenges of climate change?
Do you want to collaborate with local, native Hawaiian, county, and state organizations addressing climate change?
If you answered yes to the above, we invite you to apply!
Kama’āina artists are being sought for an Innovative Artist Climate Action Residency Program. Four artists will be selected to participate in the Hawaiʻi State Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission’s (CCMAC) groundbreaking Artist Climate Change Action Residency program.
This initiative seeks to engage local artists in the co-development of Hawaiʻi’s Climate Action Pathways through the creation of works across a range of artistic media. This unique program aims to inspire and connect Hawaiʻi residents to critical climate change challenges through art.
About the program
Selected artists will have the opportunity to engage in the development of key topics from the Climate Action Pathways, including land stewardship, energy efficiency, cultural knowledge, transportation decarbonization, and community resilience.
Artists will participate in monthly (1 – 1.5 hour) subject matter meetings from September to November of 2024 and will have the chance to visit related projects on the ground.
Work will be exhibited in the Capitol Modern, the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum in Honolulu, in the fall of 2025.
CCMAC welcomes applications from local artists working in all media including (but not limited to) painting, sculpture, music, digital art, videography, textiles, and photography.
Artists will creatively engage
with one or more topics included in the Climate Action Pathway:
· Affordable resilient housing
· Indigenous stewardship
· Food and water
· Forests, wetlands and oceans
· Affordable, clean renewable energy
· Circular economy
· Community Resilience
· Waste management
· Transportation and accessibility
Key Details
- Four kamaʻāina artists will be selected to participate
- Each artist will receive $5,000, plus $2,000 for materials, travel and shipping
- Artists will collaborate with climate champions and organizations
- Artwork will be exhibited at Capitol Modern, the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum in Honolulu fall 2025
About the application
Please provide all documents consolidated in a single PDF saved as your name and surname.
- Cover Letter – Please submit a one-page cover letter describing your artistic process, how your artwork aligns with the Climate Action Pathway and the work of CCMAC, and your personal connection to the impacts of and responses to climate change issues in Hawai’i.
- Curriculum vitae (cv) or resume (2-3 pages)
- Work Samples – Submit up to 10 images and a slide list, you can also include your professional website, social media (Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok), and/or links to previous projects.
These are some of the Frequently Asked Questions of the Artists Climate Action Residency:
– Application: Do we submit a portfolio of our work by the 25th of August to be considered for the residency?
Yes, the selection committee will meet in the first week of September to go through the submitted applications and select the 4 artists. This application material will include: a Cover Letter (one page); Curriculum vitae (cv) or resume (2-3 pages) and Work Samples (up to 10 images and a slide list) all compiled into a pdf document.
– What are the exhibition dates?
The exhibition will run for one month, from mid-September 2025 to mid-October 2025.
– Topics: do we choose one from the list of sectors, and meet with those committees to hear plans and impacts, to expand our knowledge, then apply inspiration to an art piece(s) to help spread awareness?
Yes, you can choose one or several topics you are interested in. Through this initiative we hope artists will get to know more about the climate issues in Hawaiʻi and how these are being engaged across different sectors. We hope that artists will visit some projects on the ground across different sectors (which we can facilitate). All of this will support creative engagement with climate action.
– Is it 4 separate artists working on their own artwork or is it a collaboration of artists on one project?
Yes, there will be 4 artists selected to create their own work. If the artists want to collaborate on any particular piece, this is an open question for those selected.
– The artwork submitted for the Fall 2025 exhibition, is it one artwork piece per artist, or can a body of artwork be submitted?
This depends on the media, but the assumption is that there will be several works created and/or an installation that encompasses this.
– Will the State Foundation for Culture and the Arts attend the exhibition to consider purchasing works for their acquisition program for the State?
We will be inviting SFCA to attend the exhibition and consider acquisition for the State.
– Can artists sell the work they make at the exhibition?
Artists can sell the work they make for the exhibition but are fully responsible for any transactions and agreements made. The State, The Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission and Capitol Modern will not take responsibility or liability for any transactions, will not play a role or mediate any transaction in the sale of artworks and will not hold for facilitating artwork collection from a sale transaction. No commission on any sale of works will be collected.
– If the artwork is not sold, does the artist collect it, or does it stay on display at the museum?
If the work is not sold the artist would collect the artwork after the exhibition.
