Thinking Through Art, Acting Through Story: Artivist Challenge – Climathon

Held as part of the Enable the Enablers | Climate Action (EECA) process, Artivist Challenge – Climathon took place on 8 October 2025 at Originn Creative Hub within the Good Design İzmir programme, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders from İzmir’s creative ecosystem. The event’s connection with this year’s Good Design İzmir theme, “Dirlik” — collective well-being and harmony — created a meaningful link between the climate crisis, collective well-being, and collaborative ways of thinking.

Thanks to the interdisciplinary structure and strong visibility of Good Design İzmir, Artivist Challenge was positioned not only as a Climathon, but also as a gathering that reached a broad community of designers, students, creative professionals, civil society actors, and local stakeholders. This context supported the visibility of the EECA approach within the creative ecosystem and helped introduce its climate action methods to wider audiences.

The main focus of the Climathon was marine pollution, addressed through the long-standing odor problem in İzmir Bay. Starting from a local issue enabled participants to build a direct relationship with the topic, while also creating space for the proposed solutions to connect with the city’s social and urban context.

Before the Climathon: Training and Method Transfer

The Artivist Challenge was designed not as a one-time workshop, but as an Enablers Climathon developed following a broader process of training, mentoring, and preparation carried out under the Enable the Enablers programme. During the Climathon trainings, topics such as the current dimensions of the climate crisis, Climathon methodology, community engagement, participatory process design, and creative problem-solving tools were addressed.

While these trainings aimed to provide enablers with a flexible and replicable set of methods that they could apply within their own communities, the Artivist Challenge was implemented as an adaptation of this approach tailored specifically to the creative ecosystem.

Storytelling, Art, and Climate Communication

The Climathon day began with presentations designed to prepare participants for the process. Sıla Topçam introduced a framework on storytelling, while Nathalie Aubourg explored the relationship between the climate crisis and creative production. These sessions highlighted the importance of approaching the climate crisis not only through technical data, but also through narratives, images, and emotions.

Following the presentations, participants began working in teams. The brainstorming and idea development process was supported by mentoring from illustrator and creative director Ayşegül Evcim, and research assistant İncinaz İnci from Yaşar University. The process, shaped through drawings, notes, and working sheets, enabled ideas to develop on both a creative and implementable basis.

Emerging Ideas

The projects developed during the Climathon demonstrated that climate communication can be approached at multiple scales. Among the proposals were:

• A public mural designed for implementation in urban space,

• Mavi Otomat, a reward-based system encouraging recycling,

• Social media campaigns and pop-up book concepts developed through an infographic and illustrative language,

• Designs transforming everyday objects into tools for communication,

• System proposals that positioned fishing boats as both a cleaning mechanism and a communication channel.

  
  

Visibility and Impact Within the Creative Ecosystem

Being part of the Good Design İzmir programme ensured that the Artivist Challenge – Climathon extended beyond its direct participants and became visible and accessible to different actors within the creative ecosystem. Through this, the EECA approach reached a broader community that engages with climate action through design, art, and creativity.

This gathering was documented as a holistic process that brought together education, experience, and collective production, while strengthening the potential of creative communities to produce narratives and take action on the climate crisis.

EECA 2025 Enablers 

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Originn’s Note

As Originn, this experience reminds us that solutions to the climate crisis do not emerge through technical knowledge alone, but through processes that engage with local issues, creative production, and the capacity of communities to take action.

Held within the scope of the Enable the Enablers | Climate Action process, Artivist Challenge – Climathon was one of the ways this approach came to life in İzmir. In 2025, this gathering intersected with Good Design İzmir’s theme, “Dirlik,” opening up a space to collectively reflect on marine pollution in İzmir Bay through art, design, and storytelling.

Sharing this experience today is especially meaningful for us, as Good Design İzmir_11 has recently completed its application process for the new edition under the theme “Good Design?” Because Artivist Challenge reminded us once again that good design is not only an outcome; it can also be a collective way of thinking and acting with responsibility toward the place we live in, one another, and the future.