Solutions exist to the world’s most pressing issues. Anything is possible. It starts with imagining the world we want to live in to inspire collective action.
Submission deadline: noon, May 15, 2025
Winners announced in early June, 2025
Presented by: Creatively United for the Planet Society in partnership with The Gail O’Riordan Climate and the Arts Legacy Fund c/o The Victora Foundation
Submission Criteria
Submissions must be original and can include such things as:
- Original music, songs, poetry, dance, art or any combination;
- Short, creative video skits, memes/ads, etc., with an element of comedy, poignancy or drama to get the public’s attention and generate emotion/action;
- Multi-media messaging using a variety of artistic and creative methods, including animation, etc.
ALL ENTRIES MUST BE SUBMITTED AS A VIDEO regardless of the medium(s) of choice to present your creative idea/message.
All entries must be submitted with the official contest forms (found below) and a link to your video sent by email to contest@creativelyunited.org with the subject line: Contest Entry
Additional and expanded information can be found in the downloadable forms below.
Contest Entry Form Downloads
Both forms must be completed and included in your application sent to contest@creativelyunited.org
Judging Criteria
Judges will review the submissions and select a shortlist of entries as finalists in the competition.
The judging panel will pay special attention to creativity and originality. Top marks will go to those submissions that judges think will help inspire others to learn more and act on the challenges or opportunities you are presenting.
More information on judging criteria can be found in the Application & Guidelines form.
An Arts Focused Approach To Solutions
This world faces existential challenges from climate change, biodiversity loss and unequal social justice. Transformative solutions exist! Only by being creative and united in collaboration, can humanity evolve.
Throughout history, the arts have played a pivotal role in creating change and inspiring collective consciousness. Humanity has the capacity, ingenuity and empathy to find and implement transformative solutions for a secure and just future that includes living within nature’s limits.
By focusing on solutions to imagine the world we want to live in, we can find more of what we share in common than what divides us. Creatives can explore and express both problems and solutions in ways that enhance collective consciousness and participation – just as nature is based on a model of cooperation and mutual aid.
Transforming and modernizing governance structures at all levels to be more participatory with the inclusion of citizen assemblies can reduce systemic inequities and help address the concerns of even the most marginalized.
By approaching topics from a perspective of curiosity, with the capacity to hear other points of view and decision-making processes, we can collectively solve problems and address unmet needs to diffuse conflict.
Common good has to be the overarching theme of true democracy. By working together we can unlock our greater potential. For example, civic leaders tend to be more courageous with the voices of engaged citizen groups behind them. (Peninsula Biosolids Coalition grew in strength with creative support that helped press civic leaders into action to eliminate toxicity in biosolids).
Through creative expression, the world we want can be expressed far beyond manufactured media narratives. For example, creative expression can promote and invite: celebrating Canada; participatory democracy; citizen’s assemblies; reduced military spending and increased peace; education and diplomacy training; electrified and free transit; education and health care for all; affordable and healthy housing; a lower voting age; expanded civic education and inspiring examples of electoral reform; renewable and accessible technologies; the benefits of living in a regenerative world vs a destructive resource extraction world; the importance of shopping local and its inherent circular economy (e.g. supporting local farmers, fixers, upcyclers and makers); encourage integrated resource management solutions to reduce our carbon footprint and foster zero waste; and overarchingly promote ecological awareness that we are not separate from nature, but part of it, and must do everything we can to protect and preserve our natural world.
This premiere contest is part of a long-term program of actions by the Creatively United for the Planet Society, in partnership with the Gail O’Riordan Climate and the Arts Legacy Fund, to promote and inspire the conscious evolution of solutions that lead to a just transition to a more environmentally and socially aware society. With further funding and future sponsorship, we hope to make this an annual event.
What is the world you want to live in? How can we collaboratively create it?
Contest Judges
Kate Collie
Kate is a physically disabled Canadian writer and visual artist with a deep commitment to environmental preservation, and to accessibility. Born in the UK, she lived equally in the US and Canada while she built a career combining the arts and science. She now lives on the traditional unceded territory of the Lekwungen speaking people in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts and later received advanced degrees from the University of Massachusetts and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. As an artist-writer she is known for her paintings and writings about cooperative environmental restoration, including the artist’s book Crane Dance that she co-created with her environmentalist mother. Her creative work has been published in Harper’s magazine and numerous other places. She has had exhibitions in Canada, USA, Germany and Vietnam. As a researcher and advocate she is known as a pioneer in the use of technology to make psychological health services more widely available, especially to people experiencing disability.
Dean Kalyan
Dean is a photographer and producer that has worked to integrate his background in fine art with his education in community building, education, conflict resolution and peace building. Dean has coordinated and managed several large scale public art projects that were designed to both honuor and acknowledge the Indigenous Peoples of North America as well as educate the public about a sacred relationship to the land. Dean founded Kalyan Studios with his son Zia and the two work together on a variety of commercial, artistic and documentary photography and video production projects. He lives in Victoria BC with his wife Kerri-Lynne and five children, Zia, Ariel, Quddus, Zaynab and Khadijah.
Amalia Schelhorn
Amalia is a former first soloist with Toronto’s National Ballet of Canada who has been teaching, choreographing and performing on Vancouver Island for over 35 years. She was one of the founders of Ballet Victoria and has been performing with Ballet Etoile since its inception. She has taught locally at Dansko Studios, Raino Dance and, for 24 years, at the Canadian College of Performing Arts. Currently, she teaches ballet and yoga at the pre-professional training program of the Victoria Academy of Ballet.
She is a dedicated environmentalist, and incorporates the arts into her eco-justice work. She was active in the movement to save Fairy Creek and now is part of Dogwood’s campaign against LNG proliferation in BC. She recently appeared in the Belfry Theatre’s Spark Festival in the verbatim climate play, Planning to Stay. She is excited to see the role the arts can play in helping us to create a more sustainable, kinder, more equitable world.
More judges to be announced soon
