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IN BITTER TIMES, CHANGING THE WORLD CAN TASTE SO SWEET
The limited edition print version of this report is even sweeter!
Fine Acts is a global nonprofit creative studio for social impact. We believe that another world is possible – and work across issues, geographies, disciplines, and art mediums, to create change in joyful ways.
A constellation of
bite-sized highlights
Featured Projects
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In 2023, we joined forces with TED Countdown for another edition of Artists for Climate. This time, we worked closely with 13 selected TEDx events – from South Africa to Spain, and from Iraq and Lebanon to China and South Korea, and supported them to engage local artists in SPRINTS – our unique bootcamps where creatives are briefed by experts, and then have 48 hours to produce illustrations on a specific issue.
The result? Hundreds of new awesome artworks on climate, all published under an open license on our awesome platform TheGreats.co, and ready to be unleashed into action.
But there’s so much more! The SPRINTS bootcamps created a deep sense of community, belonging and purpose amongst the artists – while the pop-up exhibitions and side events, visited by over 15 000 people, deepened understanding, instilled hope and inspiration, and ignited conversations and action on climate.
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In 2023, we did the first in-person edition of LABS since the pandemic. LABS is our format that matches artists with technologists to work on small-scale, high-impact interdisciplinary projects. The two-person teams collaborate over a weekend to prototype ideas that raise awareness or provide solutions to a specific social or environmental issue. Teams are supported by a pool of mentors and experts in the respective field. A jury awards one idea with a grant for further development, and we at Fine Acts get to produce it.
The event in Sofia was dedicated to climate change, and featured 14 awesome artists and technologists from Austria, Bulgaria, France, Romania, Slovenia, and Spain. The winning team proposed It’s Fine – a digital platform and video installation that transforms all the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parts of humanity into natural landscapes and sounds, with the goal to create a shared space to contemplate what what we stand to lose, and who really needs saving. This work launched in early 2024.
Check out the initiative →
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In 2023, we also got to do the first online edition of LABS – our unique events exploring the intersection of social/environmental issues, art, and technology. This edition focused specifically on climate equity and justice. For it, we invited a small selected group of prominent TED Fellows artists to team up with a visionary technologist, and develop a concept for an art piece on the topic. From the host of amazing ideas born during that weekend, the jury selected ORACLE, an interactive artwork featuring a talking flame, emanating from a burning (porcelain) tire, that we got to produce later in the year.
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ORACLE is an interactive artwork featuring a talking flame emanating from a burning tire. It was conceived and created by art-tech duo Matt Kenyon and Nick Bontrager, and produced by us at Fine Acts, as the winning idea in the latest online edition of our LABS format. The burning tire functions as a climate change oracle that viewers can approach and ask their questions about environmental crises and the changes in the world around them. The flame both talks and comprehends; it converses through an artificially intelligent platform built upon a mesh-work of media accounts and personal narratives linked by climate change. The artwork has been exhibited already twice in the US, in late 2023 and early 2024.
See project →
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Once Upon a Time... Water is our public art action focusing on the impact of climate change in Jordan – the second most water-scarce country in the world. For it, we worked with Jordan-based award-winning Palestinian documentary photographer Laura Boushnak, who first took images across Jordan in different locations to reflect the water crisis – like the Dead Sea, where the water level continues to decrease, and the dried-out Mujeb dam. Then, she also rented a water truck and printed the images on the vehicle, pairing them with texts: “Once upon a time... river”; “Once upon a time... sea”; “Once upon a time... lake”. The water truck carried the images across the country, creating a mobile show.
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Under Your Seat is a public art stunt that we produced in collaboration with Tunisian artist and creative director Moez Achour. In it, we installed life vests under the seats of a Michelin-starred restaurant in Dubai and added a mock plane safety card to the menu – to raise awareness of the devastating effects of climate change that are already being experienced by hundreds of millions, and to emphasize our individual responsibility to take action. We also filmed the audience reactions, as a social experiment.
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In 2023, we launched the School for Strategic Creativity with the goal of strengthening civil society organizations in the Western Balkans and improving their capacity to foster and promote democracy, human rights, and liberal values in the region. The pilot edition of the School engaged 20 civil society organizations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. It introduced an innovative methodology combining insights and approaches from campaign and communications strategy, cognitive and behavioral science, and art/creativity. Through a diverse mix of group sessions, individual assignments, and hands-on bespoke mentoring, participants were able to harness the learnings from the training in their own campaigns and communications, giving the School a very tangible dimension.
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In 2023, we organized the Creative Activist Summit – a unique conference, focused on creative communications and campaigning for social change. The program featured inspiring sessions led by world-renowned experts in the nonprofit, creative, marketing and art fields, including Srdja Popovic (CANVAS), Thomas Coombes (hope-based comms), and Nadine Bloch (Beautiful Trouble). Over the course of 2 days in Sofia, we immersed 50+ participants in interactive workshops on innovative tactics for crafting engaging campaigns, the principles of effective communications, art’s role in social change, and so much more. The event also included an intensive bootcamp on creative campaigning for 15 non-profit actors.
See event →
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To further grow the Climate Collection, in 2023 we also launched a global online edition of SPRINTS, this time on the topic of climate justice, featuring 20 international artists. The creatives focused on three sub-topics: climate&poverty, climate&women, and environmental defenders. As per usual, all works are published under an open license on TheGreats.co, our unique platform for free social impact art, so that anyone – including educators, activists and nonprofits globally – can use them in their work.
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As part of our multi-year campaign against hate speech towards Roma, LGBTI+people, and refugees in Bulgaria, we challenged 20 talented artists to illustrate what smashing prevailing prejudices can look like. We named the resulting collection, and following pop-up exhibition, TRADITIONAL VALUES – as something “being contrary to traditional values" is often an argument to limit people and rights, and to instill division and hatred. With this creative action, we recalled the true traditional values of a society – love, acceptance, and support. In addition, our Louder than Words photo action – an inspiring display of 54 courageous individuals uniting against hate speech – part of the same campaign, was exhibited in the Bulgarian Parliament.
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In 2023, we had the honor and joy to produce a number of mighty open-licensed illustration collections, in collaboration with a host of amazing global partners. All works are published on TheGreats.co, and are already unleashed into action around the world:
FUTURE OF UKRAINE: In partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, we engaged 15 artists from 9 European countries, to create a powerful collection of illustrations in support of Ukraine. The artworks highlight hope, perseverance, and courage in the face of the ongoing war – as well as the need for European solidarity. This initiative is part of Being Ukraine – our series of creative collaborations with Ukrainian artists started in the first days of the war.
GENERATIONS TOGETHER: Together with our partners at CoGenerate, we launched an inspiring collection of illustrations on bridging the generational divide. For it, we commissioned 30 global artists to produce a set of astounding visual artworks and symbols. We also launched an open call, and received over 100 submissions.
SEXUAL HEALTH: We continued our partnership with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and this time engaged artists to focus on three distinct African countries and contexts: Zambia, Kenya, and Nigeria. The produced collection aims to support local advocates & educators to engage their communities more effectively.
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TheGreats.co is our unique global platform for open-licensed socially engaged visual content. Currently, it features 1 900+ free artworks (and counting) by hundreds of global artists, on topics ranging from climate change, women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, racial justice, freedom of expression, and many more. Most of the content on The Greats is commissioned by us at Fine Acts, through our creative challenges. On top of that, artists are opening up their existing works to support the efforts of activists worldwide.
The Greats has attracted amazing support and interest, with hundreds of organizations – large and small – using and adapting the illustrations for their work. There are almost 4 000 activists and nonprofits registered on the platform. The works on The Greats have been viewed a total of 2 400 000+ times, many of which have been saved for direct use. We have also registered 36 000+ downloads of full bundles with work files allowing adaptation.
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Done with the highlights? Here are some other delights!
We were part of the Countdown Summit in Detroit, where we supported TED Countdown with two brilliant initiatives: the Climate Clinic, a mobile, community infrastructure to build collective resiliency in response to climate change; and Bahia Shehab’s new wall – emblazoned with a stanza from Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s “Earth Poem” that reads “I am Earth and Earth is you”.
Heaven & Hell in the Anthropocene, our immersive art installation on climate change in collaboration with Bahia Shehab originally launched at COP27 in Egypt, came back – this time at the American University in Cairo! The work is published under an open license – which means that it is now available to be reproduced by nonprofits, movements and educators worldwide!
The awesome documentary we are executive producers of, Chasing Chasing Amy by director extraordinaire Sav Rodgers, premiered at Tribeca to a high critical acclaim, and continued to crush it worldwide.
We developed two campaigns for our partners BCNL – one on rights in the digital space, and another one on the threats and opportunities of AI, that both featured mysterious teaser activations, stirring excitement and public debate.
After we produced and tested its beta version, we continued developing our board game DECKTATORS – in collaboration with a host of awesome activists worldwide.
Our core team journeyed to Iceland to immerse ourselves in the unique experiences of the civil society sector, and the creative communities and industries in the field of human rights, innovation & creativity – with the goal to learn more about new approaches and tools for creating impactful and engaging creative social campaigns.
Our work got featured in too many to list media outlets – but as a treat, check out this gorgeous series of interviews with us and some of our favorite artist collaborators in the world.
Through art and play, we craft the futures we desire.
The Numbers
The year 2023 at a glance
Budget 2023
Fine Acts Foundation
€302,554.85
Fine Acts Consulting**
€125,147.95
* Reserves at the end of the fiscal year, formed by grant funds for future periods, and profit from services from past periods
** Fine Acts Consulting is our consulting and training arm, 100% owned by Fine Acts Foundation
LET’S
COLLABORATE!
¡ɹǝɥʇǝƃoʇ ʎɐld s,ʇǝ˥
