Art is a powerful way to build connections, engage people, tell our stories, and demand change.
We’ve asked artists from all continents to create Power Up artworks and to share their vision of a just future powered by clean and fair renewable energy. You can use the images for your own posters, T-shirts, to host pop up art shows, projections, and more!
NB: Please note you may not use these artworks for profit and must credit the artists for online and printed materials use!
SEE THE AMAZING POWER UP ART WORK!
Chela
Chela is a Nairobi based visual artist who specializes in graffiti and fine art. Chela has gained extensive experience experimenting on the streets of Nairobi. Chela has managed to successfully train some young people on how to use art as a tool for social change.
Description: The artwork entails a card under the theme " a just future powered by the sun and the wind" where 2 women representing mother nature and lady justice hold the sun and the wind in perfect balance. The hand holding the card symbolizes the choice that humanity has taken. hence the title of the piece is "pick a card”.
Ari Aminuddin
Aminuddin is an Indonesian artist, and member of Taring Padi, a collective of woodcut artists that was found in 1999 after the fall of the New Order Era in Indonesia. Most of his work is done collectively and never represents only one name. The Taring Padi art involves information that corrects false history, made by Soeharto, the second president of Indonesia, about the massacre on communists in 1965. Aminuddin has joined several important environmental focused festivals and grass root workshops like Festival Mata Air, Switchcamp and the movement of the farmers and fisherman of Batang, Central Java, against the appearance of a coal fired power plant on their land. Aminuddin’s daily job is working at a interior design company owned by a radical feminist sculptor, Dolorosa Sinaga, in Jakarta.
Description: If we still use conventional energy, the consequence is that you have to pay compensation for the impact of environmental damage. We need to switch to environmentally friendly energy now.
El Marto
Burkinabè-French street artist and illustrator based in Ouagadougou. His artworks are intentional in addressing injustice, inequity, violence and deeply entrenched racism and colonialism. So it is no wonder that El Marto is also one of the contributors to Cartooning for peace, an international public interest institution that uses cartoons to invoke discussion regarding important issues. Recently, he exposed a series called «Tondo» at the Dakar Biennal. This series is a collection of 10 illustrations on the lids of paint pots that covered themes related to what can only be described as «Girl power», such as a woman in a superhero outfit, or one of a woman breaking the chains of corruption, poor governance and international aid from a man symbolising Africa, so also indicating that the fall of patriarchy can free the African continent. In 2021, he made illustrations of the name of the capital cities of countries in Africa to encourage pan-African tourism.
Description: This artwork depicts a cleaner future with solar and wind energy. It contrasts a polluted world caused by fossil fuels, symbolized by a wealthy industrialist buried in pollution from dirty factories, with a happy family flying in a lightbulb-shaped hot air balloon over a clean, blue ocean. In the background, a sailboat moves with the wind beneath a shining sun. It reminds us to choose clean, renewable energy for a better future.
Mundano
Mundano is a Brazilian graffiti and street artist from São Paulo. In 2007, he began using his graffiti skills to paint “carroças,” the wooden and metal carts used by the trash collectors throughout Brazil who haul off junk and recyclables. He painted 200 carroças and in the process made these invisible superheroes visible—not only in the streets, but also in the media. The effort led to “Pimp My Carroça,” an initiative that brought in 170 trash collectors in cities around the world, teaming them up with 200 street artists and 800 volunteers.
Description: Mundano often utilizes pigments sourced from evidence of environmental crimes, always aiming to hold polluters accountable. That's why he chose this particular message, symbolized by a woman, who is often the most affected in such situations. This choice is inspired by the scenes he witnessed during the dam breach in Brumadinho (MG), resulting in the release of 12 million cubic meters of mineral waste. He observed mothers and entire families losing everything due to this kind of crime. With this poster, just like in all of his work, Mundano strives to highlight and amplify this crucial issue.
A.G Saño
A.G. is a renowned and multi-awarded Filipino Artivist who has painted more than 1000 murals in 16 countries depicting peace and environment. He is a founding member of DAKILA, Artists’ Collective for Modern Heroism; Dolphins Love Freedom, a street art movement that attracted more than 200,000 volunteer painters from more than 65 countries, creating public murals for the environment; Balyena.org, an NGO for marine mammal research; and Climate Pilgrimage, a movement dedicated to walking thousands of kilometers across Asia-Pacific and Europe to connect with communities to create dialogue and grassroots climate action.
Description: The power now belongs to the people (represented by lightning rendered fists) and the crisis (represented by the global warming stripes or colored graph) shall be in the background behind us and ready to move on from it if we unite in one call for a cleaner and greener energy transition(represented by the 2 major renewable energy systems that are readily available)
JOZI
Jozi is a french artist and activist using her art to raise awareness about the social and climate crisis we’re facing. She’s working with conscious clients and loves creating impactful artworks to educate and inform. Based in France at the moment, she loves exploring and gets inspired from all those tiny adventures and the great outdoors.
Description: I chose to illustrate the sentence "Reclaim Money and Power" to emphasize on a positive statement thats gives power back to the people. At the bottom of the poster lay the oil industry, digging the ground, liberating fire and dark grey clouds. But the chains tying us up to those polluting fossil fuels are breaking, and from this liberation emerge two fists, reclaiming power and energy by holding the lightning bolt, symbol of Power Up. At the very top of the artwork are two persons with one fist up and their other hand caring for what nature gives us. By standing on top of the poster, they appear strong, crushing down what's at the bottom of the poster. The money is represented in each corner : at the bottom corners is the one coming from burning fossil fuel, becoming, at the top corner, clean money helping communities.
QIYUN
WOO QIYUN is a climate activist, storyteller and sustainability strategist based in Singapore. She draws comics, makes content and designs resources to educate, encourage and empower. She worked with research institutions, NGOs, governments, civil society groups and corporations to advance climate education. Her hope is to make climate education lovable, through colours and visuals. She is most known for her science communication work with The Weird and Wild on Instagram (@theweirdandwild)
Description: We have all the technology and human ingenuity we need to power a cleaner future, and what’s stopping us is political will and society change. A cleaner future requires us to power communities to make these decisions happen, and to encourage society to lead lives, that may be different, but necessary in a low-carbon future. My art aims to share the message that we need to power up communities, to power down fossil fuels.
Power Up is an initiative led by 350.org and partners.