Art for Earth: New Voices, Young Artists & Sustainable Future

Today, sustainability for young artists is no longer only about ecology. It is also about human connection, equality, inclusion, feminism, anti-racism, mental health, community, and the search for more conscious ways of living and creating together.

As part of the eco-art project Art for Earth, developed in collaboration with Art Center Caravel, we decided to speak with interns, young artists, curators, and emerging creatives connected to ARTE.M about how contemporary art can respond to social and environmental challenges while creating new spaces for dialogue, empathy, and collective imagination.

Morgane Kammerer — Interview Feature

Our first guest and intern is Morgane Kammerer — a visual artist from France and a first-year master’s student at ESAD Valence.Morgane Kammerer speaks about art the same way she speaks about life: directly and without softening reality. A first-year master’s student at ESAD Valence, the French artist builds her practice around racism, feminism, mental health, and political tensions, often starting from personal experience.

“For me, there’s always new material,” she says. “Capitalism, racism, fascism… everything happening around us becomes something I can work with.”

Over the last years, her work evolved from instinctive gestures into a more socially and politically conscious artistic language. The pandemic became a difficult turning point: depression interrupted her relationship with creativity, and returning to art afterward was slow and fragile.

“I had to take things slowly for my creative mind,” she explains.

Although her work often deals with violence and discomfort, Morgane sees art as deeply connected to collective awareness — including ecological and social issues. At the same time, she openly acknowledges the contradictions inside the art world itself: “There’s a lot of consumerism even in the art world.”

For her, sustainability is less about purity and more about emotional impact. She wants artworks to remain with people after they leave the exhibition space. “I like art that shocks people,” she says. “I don’t want to approach these subjects softly.”

When speaking about education, her perspective becomes gentler. Not every artist, she believes, is meant to teach. Some naturally create spaces of care and support for younger artists, while others do not.

Asked what she still wants to learn, Morgane speaks about understanding different political and queer experiences across countries and cultures. Learning, for her, is about expanding perspectives rather than mastering technical skills.

And despite the political urgency present in her work, her conclusion remains unexpectedly soft:

“Everyone needs peace and quiet. We need to slow down sometimes, look at what we’ve accomplished, and then continue forward.”

Izabel Ranja (Iza Criza) — Fashion, Waste & New Life for Clothes

Our next guest is Iza Criza — Romanian fashion designer, whose practice explores sustainability, reuse, and new ways of thinking about fashion after the pandemic.

For Iza, the lockdown period completely changed the way young artists communicated with the world. Fashion shows disappeared, creative work moved online, and social media suddenly became the main exhibition space.

“Expressing myself like that wasn’t really my comfort zone,” she says. “I prefer to meet people in real life.”

Today, sustainability plays a central role in her work. Working in one of the industries most connected to overconsumption and pollution, Iza focuses on reuse, repurposing, and reducing waste through creative practice.

“When I’m doing a project, I don’t throw away any waste,” she explains. “I use everything or keep it to use later.”

Among her projects, she highlights experiments with the “zero-waste” method, where every piece of fabric becomes part of the final garment. She also works with second-hand clothing, leftover textiles, and natural fibres such as cotton and wool.

For Iza, real change is impossible individually:“You can’t change the world by yourself — you need people around you.”

Speaking about education, she believes artists can become teachers only through openness and empathy toward different creative visions and approaches.

And when asked what she still wants to learn, her answer remains simple and honest:

“I’m open to learning every day.”

Ana Diaconescu — Art, Humanity & Learning to Be Content

Our next guest is Ana Diaconescu — Romanian graphic artist, fine arts graduate from the National University of Arts in Bucharest, currently exploring art therapy, emotional expression, and contemporary visual practices.

In recent years, Ana feels her work has moved away from focusing only on technical skill and toward something more emotional, personal, and reflective.

“I focused more on the deeper meanings and emotional part of my art,” she explains, “and not just on the technique.”

For Ana, artistic skill only becomes meaningful when it helps communicate something sincere. Painting, collage, visual experimentation, and art therapy became ways not simply to produce images, but to explore feelings, memory, and connection.

The pandemic strongly affected her relationship with people and communication. More than isolation itself, she remembers the atmosphere that followed afterward — a feeling that many people became emotionally distant from one another.

“It was so difficult… just opening up and talking, just being genuine,” she says. “We forgot how to be humans.”

Despite this, Ana still believes art remains deeply connected to society, politics, ecology, and collective awareness. In her view, culture helps people remember that life is more than survival or productivity.

“Art is not for rich people,” she says. “It’s a reminder that the world can get better.”

Sustainability in her practice appears less through materials alone and more through emotional and social approaches. Through art therapy and collective workshops, she encourages people to create using their own stories, memories, emotions, and everyday objects instead of constant consumption.

“I teach people how to make their own art,” she explains. “It’s kind of the opposite of consumerism.”

At the same time, Ana openly questions superficial ecological gestures and “performative sustainability” inside contemporary culture.

“We think we’re eco-friendly, but we’re actually not that eco-friendly,” she says. “What we’re doing ecologically is just self-soothing.”

For Ana, real ecological change requires slowing down consumption and becoming more honest about the systems people continue supporting unconsciously.

When speaking about artists today, she believes the greatest obstacle is not lack of talent, but economic instability and exhaustion.

“Art can save the world,” she says, “but people don’t want to just buy a painting anymore since they don’t have food to eat.”

Still, she strongly believes artists should share knowledge and participate in education, not only through institutions but through personal exchange and openness toward younger generations.

“If you don’t share this knowledge with everyone, it’s just selfish.”

And when asked what she most wants to learn, Ana’s answer becomes unexpectedly gentle and philosophical:

“A skill that you should learn in art and in life in general is how to be content.”

For her, artistic growth is inseparable from emotional growth — learning to appreciate progress, accept imperfections, and remain attentive to the beauty and difficulties of everyday life.