#Creating4Change2021: Open Letters to COP26

Climate negotiations have stagnated in the past five years. While we still struggle to stand and build back better from the global health crisis, the broader threat of the climate crisis continues to widen the gap between those with the capacity to adapt and those who are more vulnerable to its impacts. We need to come together as we face critical tipping points in our environment. We need COP26 to be different.

What questions would you like to ask world leaders, decision makers, and ordinary people in light of these crises that we face? What would you like to tell them to encourage greater commitment and action in COP26 and beyond?

Share these messages and questions through art in Creating4Change 2021: Open Letters to COP26.

What is Creating4Change?

Creating4Change is an annual online art challenge that encourages people to stop and reflect on issues that affect everyone in our Common Home. It started in 2019, initially called Sketching4Change, through the initiative of Casa Velha in collaboration with the Faith and Cooperation Foundation (FEC) and CIDSE. It was launched with the theme “On the Way with Amazon” in solidarity with the Amazon Synod, as an initiative to promote personal and collective awareness on how our lifestyles affect the Amazon. In 2020, the art challenge continued with the theme “Drawing Laudato Si'” in line with the celebration of the fifth anniversary of the encyclical.

Several people shared their creations–not just sketches, but sculptures, paintings, poetry, music, and photographs–that filled the online sphere with daily reminders that we share a common home, and that we can in turn fill the offline world with actions in response to our responsibility to care for creation and one another.

This year's theme: Open Letters to COP26

What questions would you like to ask world leaders, decision makers, and ordinary people in light of the crises that we face? What would you like to tell them to encourage greater commitment and action in COP26 and beyond?

Share these messages and questions through art in Creating4Change 2021: Open Letters to COP26.

Here’s how:

Do this challenge at your own pace. While the goal is to do the exercise daily for a whole month, you may choose to do it however frequently your current situation allows.
Check out our list of daily word prompts. Reflecting on the word of the day, create an artwork, poem, song, essay, or any artistic expression of the message you want to bring to COP26.
You may choose to address your message to a specific person or community that you think will be encouraged or challenged by your creation.
Post a photo or video of your creation on your social media page (Facebook, Instagram or Twitter), and use the hashtag #Creating4Change2021 #OpenLettersCOP26. If you can, please tag us @Ecojesuit on your posts.
Do not forget to set your privacy settings to public so we can see your entries.
Invite your friends to join!

Creating4Change is part of On the Way to Change: a global community pilgrimage to COP26. Submissions will be included in the pilgrimage map, and, at the end of the journey will be included in a virtual gallery of stories from all the communities that were part of the pilgrimage.