Pauline Lisowski Editorial project manager Pauline Lisowski is a young art critic and independent curator who is interested in the relationship that artists have with nature, landscape and ecology. With a strong environmental conscience, she promotes the French art scene through exhibitions and artistic residencies in Paris and in outer regions. Member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and the Association of Associated Curators (CEA), Pauline is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Nancy, as well as of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon – Sorbonne (masters in Aesthetics and Cultural Projects in the Public Space). She is also an alumnus of the Blois landscape school.
Lisowski has been a member of the Impact Art News editorial team since 2020, where she supervises the latest exhibition news in France. Besides Impact Art News, she writes for Art Press, Inferno, Point Contemporain, Transverse, lacritique.org and others…
Pauline Lisowski
The team
MASKBOOK
Action_EN
Maskbook is an international, artistic and participative project launched in 2015 during the COP21. It addresses major environmental issues: air pollution, global warming, waste, pandemic.
Maskbook raises awareness and mobilizes the public through creativity using the anti-pollution mask. The anxiety dimension of this type of mask is reversed to become an artistic and committed tool. More than 6,500 people from more than 70 countries created their masks from waste and gave them a name and a message. This collective work is also a real citizen advocacy. Citizens, artists and celebrities from around the world, everyone is invited to contribute to the Maskbook project. Thanks to its strong visual impact, Maskbook manages to mobilize younth, who are particularly invested in the project. There are many ways to participate in the Maskbook project:
- mask-creation workshops
- exhibitions
- an online portrait gallery
- a mobile app
- Masktrotter
KEY FIGURES
Click here- More than 6,500 portraits on maskbook.org
- Participants from more over 70 countries (India, France, China, Ecuador, South Korea, Morocco, Kenya, Ghana, Japan, Poland, Germany…)
- Over 200 workshops of masks creation
- 15 exhibitions
- 60 personalities from sustainable development and art already masked
The idea of Maskbook was born during the first “Conclave” (see the action Conclave of the 21) organized by Art of Change 21 at the end of 2014. Chinese artist Wen Fang, who participated in this event, is credited with having thought of the name “Maskbook”: “In China we do not have Facebook, but since we are all wearing masks to protect us against pollution, if we had it, Facebook should be renamed Maskbook!”.
Since 2016, the UN Environment and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition have been the institutional partners of Maskbook, and the Schneider Electric Foundation is its main partner.
Masktrotter
Masktrotter is the nomadic and inclusive version of Maskbook.
A masktrotter is a globe-trotter or traveler who wishes to give an element of art, ecology and solidarity to his travels. Its action is to meet others and start the dialogue, with those whose daily reality reflects the current environmental crisis. The objective is to propose to individuals to create with them a mask and to realize their portrait, which will then be shared accompanied by their testimony on Maskbook.org.
The Masktrotter project is an agent of solidarity between peoples, and particularly between the major carbon emitting countries and the countries most affected by the environmental crisis. Valuable testimonials about health, climate change and air pollution are collected from people around the world, and highlighted through the online portrait gallery. Their masks can even be exhibited in large cultural and environmental events.
The project Masktrotter values sharing, creation and collective action, it is an invitation to travel and meet, through artistic creation.
Bike to Act, one of our masktrotters duo, collecting waste before creating their masks
Workshop organized by our masktrotter Nicolas in Pokhara, Nepal
If you have a camera and a great desire to meet others, then you’re ready!
To participate: maskbook@artofchange21.com
The Art of Change 21 team will provide you with a mini guide with more detailed information on the organization of the Maskbook workshops, even in the middle of the jungle!
Masktrotter’s patron is photographer Pierre de Vallombreuse, a world-renowned traveler and photographer specialized in tribal peoples.
Le Conclave 2017
Art of Change 21 organized a second Conclave in October 2017, with the support of UN Environment.
Designers, artists, activists, social entrepreneurs, film directors, fashion designers, environmentalists, architects and engineers, nearly 20 outstanding, committed and internationally renowned individuals rose to the challenge of a speedy and international meeting of the minds at the Salon Alexandre III at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Among them: Leyla Acaroglu (Australia / USA), Leah Borromeo (USA / Philippines / UK), Minerva Cuevas (Mexico), Illac Diaz (Philippines), Soukeina Hachem (Morocco), Edda Hamar (Iceland / Australia), Romuald Hazoumé (Benin), Vincent JF Huang (Taiwan), Karine Niego (France), Alexandre Lumbroso (France), Ibrahim Mahama (Ghana), Tiffany Pattinson (Hong Kong), Archana Prasad (India), Thomas Ortiz (France), Neeshad V. Shafi (Qatar), Afroz Shah (India), Elsa Tang (China).
The partners of the second Conclave were the Schneider Electric Foundation, RMN Grand-Palais, We Belong Forum and the Silencio. It is also supported by the UN Environment.
Download the presentation document of the second Conclave
Le Conclave 2014
The first Conclave of Art of Change 21 took place on the occasion of the COP21 (the UN’s 21st annual Conference of the Parties on Climate Change), one year before the big event in Paris at the end of November 28-29, 2014.
Twenty-one selected participants from over five continents, each inspirational and committed to environmental and social causes, travelled from their respective countries (China, Brazil, New Zealand, Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, Kenya, USA, UK, and France) to meet and collectively imagine innovative actions.
The actions MASKBOOK and CAIRE GAME were born during this Conclave. Art of Change 21 implemented them on an international level the following year, organizing over 60 events worldwide, in France, China, Kenya, Ecuador, South Korea and Morocco, bringing together thousands of people.
The first Conclave was supported financially by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, LVMH, Groupe CDC, Greenflex and Orange. It obtained the COP21 label and benefited from the patronage of the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. It also had numbers of project partners: La Gaîté Lyrique, We Belong Forum, Agence Nouvelle Culture, Set Event, Bilum, Yes We Green.
Download the presentation document of the first Conclave
Afroz Shah
Members of Le Conclave
Afroz Shah – India
Le Conclave 2017
Afroz Shah, a young Indian lawyer from Mumbai, is synonymous with the world’s largest beach clean-up project.
In October 2015, frustrated by the mounds of ocean plastic completely covering the city’s Versova beach and determined to do something about it, Shah started cleaning up the beach himself, one piece of rubbish at a time.
Every weekend since, Shah has inspired volunteers to join him. So far, the volunteers have collected over 4,000 tons of trash from the 2.5 kilometre beach.
Shah now plans to expand his group’s operation to prevent litter from washing down the local creek and onto the beach. He also wants to clean-up the coastline’s rubbish-choked mangrove forests, which act as a natural defense against storm surges, and to inspire similar groups across India and beyond to launch their own clean-up movements.
He vows to continue his beach clean-up crusade until people and their governments around the world change their approach to producing, using and discarding plastic and other products that wash up onto beaches all over the world.
Press kits and press releases
NEWSLETTERS
January 2021, Happy New Year 2021 !
December 2020, 2020, the year of the unexpected
July 2020, Moving on despite this uncertainty
April 20th, 2020, Launch of the Covid-19 Special Maskbook Campaign
January 2020, Climate and biodiversity at the heart of the action
December 2019, Special COP25
September 2019, Art will be on show at COP25
May 2019, Art of Change 21 will shake Art Basel!
January 2019, 2019 : A promising start to the year for Art of Change 21!
November 2018, Art and upcycling art COP24 Climate conference with Art of Change 21 and Schneider Electric Foundation
July 2018, Travels and commitment
May 2018, Up Next in France and Beyond…
February 2018, Art of Change 21 : Creativity for a Better Teaching
December 5th, 2017, From China to India, an exceptional end of year fo Maskbook
October 16th, 2017, Result of Le Conclave of Art of Change 21: Close to ten new ideas for the climate
September 2017, International co-creative event against climate change at Grand Palais, Paris
July 20th, 2017, 2nd Conclave of Art of Change 21 – An international meeting of co-creation for the cliamte at the Grand Palais in Paris, October 9-10, 2017
June 2017, Summer Program
May 2017, Play, celebrate, travel, three positive ways to engage with Art of Change 21
April 2017, Art of Change 21 Full Speed Ahead
February 2017, Art of Change 21 starts the year off in Belgium
January 2017, Here’s to an astonishing 2016!
PRESS RELEASES
April 20th, 2020, Launch of the Covid-19 Special Maskbook Campaign
June 7th, 2019, Climate Being : Climate change meets Art in Basel
November 28th, 2018, Art and Upcycling at the heart of the COP24
December 6th, 2017, Press Release, Maskbook is coming to India
November 2017, Press Kit, COP23, Creative Klima
October 11th, 2017, Press Release, Result of Le Conclave of Art of Change 21
September 2017, Press Kit, Le Conclave, 48 hours to fight climate change
July 17th, 2017, 2nd Conclave of Art of Change 21 – An international meeting of co-creation for the climate at the Grand Palais in Paris, October 9-10, 2017
January 2017, Here’s to an astonishing 2016!
October 5th, 2016, Maskbook, as cultural highlight of Habitat III, October 2016, Quito, Ecuador
September 27th, 2016, Art of Change 21 Side event at COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco
September 25th, 2016, Autumn 2016: 10 Maskbook events on 4 continents!
November 30th, 2015, COP21 in Paris: Art of Change 21 will put creativity front and centre on three key locations, from the Grand Palais to the Bourget!
November 6th, 2015, Launch of Caire Game a playful and intuitive Website aiming to reduce CO2 emissions
October 14th, 2015, Maskbook.org is online !
December 12th, 2014, Objective COP21: Conclave of 21, Lauch of Maskbook
Minerva Cuevas
Members of Le Conclave
Minerva Cuevas – Artist – Mexico
Le Conclave 2017
Minerva Cuevas is a conceptual artist who generates projects in response to politically- charged contexts. Several of the artist’s works take the form of re-branding campaigns— exhibited as murals and product designs — that question the role corporations play in the management of natural resources, fair labor practices, and evolving forms of neo- colonialism.
Cuevas finds provocative ways to intervene in public space, whether through interventions, the deployment of billboards, mural paintings or by hacking public utilities to provide discounted or free services. Cuevas has addressed the negative impact that humans have on the environment through sculptural installations and paintings coated in tar. She is the founder of Mejor Vida Corp. (1998) and the International Understanding Foundation (2016).
Recent solo exhibitions have been presented internationally at venues including Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico (2012); Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2010). Cuevas’s work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as South London Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2016); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2015); Musee d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France (2012); and the Centre Pompidou (Paris 2010). Cuevas was awarded the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) in 2004.
Leah Borromeo
Members of Le Conclave
Leah Borromeo
Le Conclave 2017
Leah Borromeo is a journalist, filmmaker and arts interventionist. With over a decade’s experience in television news at an editorial level, she bridges arts practices with documentary. Much of her work involves public and private space, social architectures, the environment and banging on about how journalism is an art.
Currently directing ‘The Cotton Film: Dirty White Gold’, a feature film on Indian farmer suicides and fashion which dissects the clothing supply chain and casts a satirical eye on ‘white-saviour’ documentaries, she is working on ‘Climate Symphony’ – a data soni cation project that pulls narratives from climate change data, ascribes musical instruments to those stories and then turns them into a four-part symphony.
In addition to coming up with short-form interventions that document and occupy real and virtual spaces, she’s also made a series of short films on arts activism for British station Channel 4’s “Random Acts” and hosted Resonance FM’s “The Left Bank Show”.
Illac Diaz
Members of Le Conclave
Illac Diaz – Founder of Liter of Light
Le Conclave 2017
Illac Diaz is a social entrepreneur and founder of MyShelter Foundation and Liter of Light. Liter of Light is a global, grassroots movement committed to providing affordable, sustainable solar lights to people with limited or no access to electricity. The concept is simple: collect plastic bottles, ll them with water and bleach, and install them on rooftops. The bleach- lled bottles then refract the light from the outdoors into the house, lighting
up like a lightbulb. They also can be upgraded with an LED bulb, micro-solar panels and a battery to provide a low cost night-time lighting system.
Liter of Light has installed more than 450,000 bottle lights in more than 15 countries, as well as a few thousand streetlights. Liter of Light’s open source technology has been recognized by the UN and adopted for use in some UNHCR camps.
Liter of Light is the recipient of the 2016 St Andrews Prize for the Environment, the 2015 Zayed Future Energy Prize and a winner of the 2014-2015 World Habitat Award.