Year of Climate Care is a project and initiative inspired by global environmental movements and the debate on climate change and its impact on communities. The conceptual background is provided by the themes of the New European Bauhaus initiative.

The event takes place under the auspices of the President of the Slovak Republic, Zuzana Čaputová.

The intention is to support and develop the activities of the creative and educational sector to prevent the negative impacts of climate change in social, cultural and everyday life and to support the transition of society to a carbon-free future, educating about climate change and how to cope with it.

The expected long-term outcome is that the project organisers and partners will create a distributed interdisciplinary platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration between the creative, educational and other sectors.

The concept of climate care is already well-known, the principle is to use a positive term alongside the established terms climate crisis and climate change to focus attention on the important area of care in order to proactively address the issues.

Target groups

These are the three main target groups of the project that we consider important in the process of social change.

• Education professionals (educators) = community of professionals in the field of education, formal and non-formal education

• Creators = representatives of the creative sector (creatives) = among them architects, designers, artists, theorists, curators, journalists...

• Community representatives (stakeholders) = local government representatives, community leaders and representatives, political representatives...

Programme in 2022

1. Series of events - discussions, lectures, workshops, visits of foreign experts, meetings...

2. Experimental Summer Climate Academy

3. Artistic research residencies

Programme structure

The programme metaphorically follows the natural annual cycle in our geographical conditions.

Spring will be devoted to education, to new professions that are needed for the change process, to new subjects and curricula in schools, to lifelong learning for professionals who can contribute to change. 

Summer will be a period for the Climate Academy as an intensive place and time for exchange of information, experiences. The Academy will focus on the creative sector, on activities in architecture and design that bring together futuristic yet pragmatic solutions to the challenges of climate change. 

Autumn will focus on creatives, a period characterised by intense cultural activity. Creative hubs will be involved and the programme will include an international conference.

Winter, as a time to think about the year(s) ahead, will bring together experts from the political, municipal and regional spheres, inviting representatives of different communities and activities dedicated to caring for the climate and the environment into a dialogue.

Who we are

The project is initiated by the Goethe Institute and the French Institute in Bratislava with the support and active collaboration of a number of local actors, cultural organisations, informal groups and individual professionals, educational institutions focused on architecture, design, art and other creative industries.