Open call: Biodiversity Fingerprint Public Artwork Commission

Proposition is commissioning a major temporary public artwork to encourage viewers to think about the potential for humans to have a positive impact on our planet’s ecology.

The artwork will be displayed on Proposition Camden’s Northwest façade, facing the Roundhouse. Envisaged as a digital print on fabric, the artwork will be 15m wide by 9m high.

The commission, ‘Biodiversity Fingerprint’, will include an Augmented Reality (AR) layer which will be embedded in the artwork, to add depth and meaning to the piece. Based on the commissioned artist’s level of experience with AR, this element may be provided by the artist(s) with support from AR specialists, or by Proposition’s AR specialists, in consultation with the commissioned artist(s). Prior experience of working with AR is not a requirement to apply for this commission.

Concept
If humanity is now the dominant influence on the ecology of our planet then aiming for Net Zero and low impact is not sufficient as it will merely slow the pace of degradation; this degradation is entirely avoidable, as human beings can have a dramatically positive impact on biodiversity and ecological resilience in the process of producing everything we need to thrive.

Drawing on an immense wealth of positive examples from different parts of the world and throughout history – such as the Loess Plateau in China, self-sustaining Oases across the Middle East, Homegardens in South East Asia, or the Great Plains in North America – and combining them with recent scientific discoveries, we must learn to reimagine ways in which we can transform our civilisation’s damaging impact on biodiversity and progress to an age of ecological abundance.

This is the central idea that we want the commissioned artist(s) to explore in
this commission.

In response to the prevalent concept of ‘Carbon Footprint’, we conceive a progressive approach that focuses on the immense potential for human beings to have a positive impact on biodiversity. Biodiversity Fingerprint is the concept we are putting forward to provoke consideration and imagination of how our actions can increase biodiversity. What Biodiversity Fingerprint does a person, company or country have? Our relationship with other living things is an integral part of our identity, much like a fingerprint. See our full open call and appendix document for more details.