Marking Earth Day through Climate Action: Activities

Silistea Snagovului, Romania

tranzit.ro
Silent Spring. We plant, we listen, we observe
25.04.2026

The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life
Int. Primaverii 10, Silistea Snagovului village

In 1962, environmentalist Rachel Carson was publishing her book, Silent Spring, which was thoroughly documenting and denouncing the devastating effects of DDT and other chemicals used intensively as pesticides after WWII. The book raised the awareness on how synthetic pesticides kill indiscriminately insects, birds, soil, and eventually people, while only making stronger the pests against which they are designed to work, and became fundamental for the environmental movement in the United States and worldwide.

Since then, some small victories were obtained, in phasing out chemicals such DDT, or in preventing big polluting projects from being implemented, and yet, the losses were much more substantial and we continue to count them, as toxic chemical agents return in force on the agricultural field and to the field of strategic weapons in current wars.

We can still hear the birds at the Station, and in the past five years, we brought back insects unseen anywhere on the nearby lands of monocultures. While they are still here, we invite you to listen to them and to each other, during the last in a series of spring gatherings, with seasonal work, with collective cooking, and with discussions about whichever future we might have left.

Organising team: Edi Constantin, Adelina Luft, Mihai Mitran, Ovidiu Tichindeleanu, Raluca Voinea

Ljubljana, Slovenia

MG+MSUM
Interventions into the permanent collection: 20th Century. Continuities and Ruptures
22.04.2026 10:00-18:00

The permanent display of Moderna Galerija will be selectively reinterpreted through newly developed wall texts highlighting environmentally critical motifs and themes. These interventions produce an additional interpretative layer, enabling visitors to trace the developments of ecology, environmental degradation, and pollution through Slovenian art of the 20th century.

By foregrounding ecocritical readings of existing works, the display proposes a reconsideration of the collection in light of contemporary environmental issues.

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MG+MSUM
Workshop – Natural sounds in and around
22.04.2026 16:00-17:00

This workshop, intended for visitors of all ages, focuses on recording and recontextualising natural sounds in and around the museum environment. Influenced by neo-avantgarde interventions in nature and usage of installation media, participants will create a collectively made sound installation with sounds of the commons.

Participants use their phones to record a range of environmental and human sounds in and around the museum; these recordings will serve as the basis for the construction of a sound installation, shaped through chance, layering and dialogue between participants. The resulting work will present a collage of external soundscapes within the museum space, temporarily dissolving the boundary between the interior and exterior environments of the museum.

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MG+MSUM
Guided tour – Ecocritique and Moderna galerija's collection
22.04.2026 10:00-18:00

Kristjan Sedej, curator at Moderna galerija, will lead a guided tour of the permanent display, tracing the development of environmental theory from the beginning of the 20th century to the present.

The tour will highlight the ways N/nature has been represented in art and the broader implications of these visual regimes, alongside the intellection and cultural frameworks that have shaped these depictions. Visual analysis will be complemented by historical context, connecting artistic strategies with broader developments in environmental awareness and ecological crises (i.e., Chernobyl and the river Krupa pollution crisis).

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MG+MSUM
Reading and tea room
22.04.2026 10:00-18:00

The ground-floor bookshop will be temporarily transformed into a reading and tea room, offering visitors a space to rest, read and engage with thematically relevant literature. A curated selection of texts on art, literature, ecology, and environmental thought will be made available for browsing.

Conceived as a space of attunement, reflection, and informal exchange, the room invites visitors to slow down and reflect on their experience of the exhibitions and art within a broader conceptual and sensory framework.

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MG+MSUM
Guided tour for children – Small Steps: OM Production
22.04.2026 10:00-18:00

Small Steps is a programme of guided playful encounters with art, designed for children. On the occasion of Earth Day, a special guided tour will be organised within the exhibition of the OM Production film collective.

Through sounds, movements, chance, and visual representations of Nature, the tour will explore connections between artistic practice and the natural world. Through these we will investigate how the members of OM Production understood the world as an ever-changing system, similar to Nature. Participants will be encouraged to rethink how we perceive and experience nature, and to develop their own forms of curiosity, observation, and artistic inquiry into their surroundings.

Warsaw, Poland

MSN Warsaw
Energy Readings. A Collective Reading of Texts on Energy
22.04.2026 16:30-18:30

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “energy”? A gas station, the special theory of relativity, a Monster energy drink, an energy vampire friend, the Strait of Hormuz, radiating masculine energy, CO2 emissions, yet another electricity bill, the Wrocław Laboratory of Subtle Energies, radiating feminine energy, “drill, baby, drill”, entropy, mines and wind turbines, a compilation of Hi-NRG tracks, or perhaps something else entirely?

To mark Earth Day and L’Internationale Climate Action at the Museum of Modern Art, we will be reading a variety of texts about energy together – from scientific papers, press reports, and politicians' speeches to poems and alchemical treatises. The reading will be hosted by artist, poet, and curator Maja Demska.

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MSN Warsaw
Degrowth in Polish. Book Launch
22.04.2026 18:30-20:00

To mark Earth Day and L’Internationale Climate Action at the Museum of Modern Art, we will be discussing degrowth – a comprehensive proposal for how we can ensure a good and prosperous life for all people without exceeding planetary boundaries.

Degrowth proposes that instead of focusing on abstract "economic growth," we should focus on the sensible use of resources, labor, and energy, investing them in what matters most: human well-being, social care, a sense of purpose, deep and meaningful relationships, environmental protection, and community development.

Economist Zofia Łapniewska, cultural studies scholar Weronika Parfianowicz, alongside writer and activist Daniel Petrykiewicz, will discuss the recently published book Degrowth in Polish, as well as what degrowth proposes for the economy, the environment, housing, labor, and culture. The discussion will be moderated by Jakub Depczyński and Bogna Stefańska.

Dublin, Ireland

NCAD Marks Earth Day with
Two-Day Programme on Climate Action and Creative Practice
22–23 April 2026

Location: National College of Art and Design, Dublin

The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) will host a two-day programme of events to mark Earth Day 2026, bringing together students, alumni, and staff to explore the role of art and design in responding to the climate crisis.

Together, these events reflect NCAD’s ongoing commitment to climate justice, creative collaboration, and systemic transformation in art and design education.

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NCAD
Lunchtime Talk, Student Queer Shed and Planting Action
22.04.2026 13:00-15:00

On 22 April, a Lunchtime Talk, Student Queer Shed and Planting Action will take place from 1–3pm. The session will feature alumni of the Sustainable Exhibition Making programme at the Creative Futures Academy (CFA/NCAD), Cristina Nicotra (Pallas Projects: Entangled Life) and Shane Malone Murphy (Kunstverein Aughrim: Sustainability Policy) who will share insights into their practices and approaches to climate-responsive work.

This will be followed by an introduction to Ireland’s Queer Shed network, opening discussion around the development of a Student Queer Shed at NCAD – envisioned as a space for collective making, growing, and community exchange.

The event will conclude with a collective planting action in the NCAD Field, where participants will begin establishing a community tree nursery.

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NCAD
Climate Gathering: Climate-Responsive Education and Institutional Just Transition
23.04.2026

On 23 April, NCAD will host an internal Climate Gathering: Climate-Responsive Education and Institutional Just Transition, a staff-focused workshop facilitated by Brian Gough and Seoidín O'Sullivan.

This session will support staff in developing approaches to climate-responsive teaching and institutional change, with a focus on curriculum development, just transition pathways, and building a community of practice across the college. The workshop will also highlight how arts education can contribute to climate action at both studio and institutional levels, while strengthening connections with NCAD’s Green Team and ongoing sustainability initiatives.

Madrid, Spain

Museo Reina Sofía
Situated Voices 38. Climate shelters for a livable city
23.04.2026 19:00

With the climate emergency, cities from Southern Europe like Madrid have become increasingly hostile environments during the summer months: high temperatures exacerbated by asphalt, a lack of green spaces, and an excess of leisure areas linked to consumerism and ill-suited to extreme temperatures. For several years, community spaces, citizen collectives, and cultural institutions have begun to organize around the idea of ​​“climate refuges,” opening spaces free of charge and even creating activities within them that provide shelter and offer alternatives for coping with the heat. In this context of climate crisis, ecological degradation, and intensified social vulnerability, climate shelters have become a tool for survival.

In the summer of 2025, Museo Reina Sofía together with the Museo Situado assembly, organized the Climate Shelter: A Space for Rest. Based on this experience and others like it in the city, this conversation aims to forge alliances between neighbors, spaces, and proposals for shelters in the city of Madrid with a view to next summer. This is an urgent dialogue dedicated to sharing and collectively reflecting on how this crisis affects the city and its neighborhoods, what material realities each project addresses, and how they meet the specific needs of each context.

The network of climate shelters emerges as a shared horizon of resistance and organization in the face of this ecosocial crisis, which is no longer a future threat, but a present condition that compels us to redefine how we inhabit the city.

Zagreb, Croatia

MSU Zagreb
MSU ALTERNATIVE PICNIC
22.04.2026 18:00

The Museum of Contemporary Art hosts an alternative picnic on April 22, from 6 PM until sunset, as part of the Meeting Point project. Held on the grassy area between the Museum and the INA building – an overlooked green space surrounded by busy roads – the event transforms the site into a temporary place for community, play, and shared experiences, inviting visitors to reconnect with each other and the city, while raising awareness of the potential of such invisible urban spaces.

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MSU Zagreb
WE ARE NOT CHICKENS
22.04.2026 20:00

On April 22, 2026, on Earth Day, at 8 PM at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, a team of artists and collaborators from various media, led by musician and visual artist Demirel Pašalić, will perform a concert dedicated to all the inhabitants of the Earth.

Not far from the center of the inhabited world of our big globe that we call home, in a land of beautiful landscapes affectionately called the Big Little Hunting Ground, a group of authors will perform language through music, text and video – words and images that do not hurt the ears or sting the eyes as they should, while looking from afar at a tradition that, lo and behold, is being protected with both hands.

We Are Not Chickens is a project by Demirel Pašalić in collaboration with Luka Čapeta as musical director and performer, and producer and dramaturgical collaborator Silvija Stipanov. The entire team of authors consists of musicians, and music co-creators Josip Šustić (classical guitar, bass), Leo Beslać (flute, keyboards, vocals), Šimun Matišić (drums, vibraphone), Dina Puhovski (vocals), Tena Novak (violin), Luka Dominik (trumpet), Igor Pavlica (trumpet), Nataša Antoniazzo (vocals) and performer Barbara Matijević, as well as collaborations by authors Hrvoje Nikšić (sound design and live-mix), Azra Svedružić (video editing), Viktor Krasnić (video editing and animation), Ena Dvojak (light design), Paola Vukelić (video live-mix), Demian Luburić (samples and technical support) and Goran Ožegović (technical support). With organizational and coordination support from MSU curator Ana Škegro.

The performance is part of the multi-year environmental art project ‘Listen to the Forests!’, which Demirel Pašalić and Azra Svedružić have been developing since 2019, responding to the problem of deforestation of Medvednica and other Croatian forests, as well as the global degradation of natural habitats.

Gothenburg, Sweden

HDK Valand
Earth Day Assembly
22.04.2026 11:30-14:00

Location: Galleri Résistance (Bangatan 10) and Gathenhielmska Huset, Göteborg

To mark Earth Day 2026, and as part of L’Internationale Climate Assembly’s joint actions across Europe, we will gather at Galleri Résistance to share practices, struggles and dreams.

The assembly will combine readings, presentations, music and food with, amongst others, Åsa Sonjasdotter (HDK-Valand), Mercè Torres Ràfols and Natalie Blom (Galleri Résistance and Garden Loops), Nick Aikens (HDK-Valand and L’Internationale) and Victoria Skoglund (AiC).

You are invited to bring a short text, poem, or work of art to share with the assembly in response to Earth Day.

The readings will take place at Galleri Résistance, followed by a 5 min walk through the gardens to Gathenhielmska Huset orangerie, where a seasonal lunch inspired by early spring foraging will be served, with ingredients such as wild garlic, seaweed, stinging nettle and dandelion.

Antwerp, Belgium

M HKA
Workshop with Vollegrond on M HKA terrace
22.04.2026 16:00

Vollegrond organizes hands-on workshops where children create seed bombs—small balls of soil, clay, and seeds that can be scattered across urban spaces. Through this playful and educational activity, young participants learn about biodiversity, guerrilla gardening, and how to actively green their own neighborhoods. By spreading these seed bombs throughout the city, they help transform overlooked spaces into pockets of urban nature.

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M HKA
Uriburu Silkprints
25.04.2026 13:00-15:00

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M HKA
Canine Futures: Traces of Care, for Cities to Come. Lecture by Mine Yıldırım (Assistant Professor, Kadir Has University Istanbul, Türkiye)
25.04.2026 15.00-16.30

This lecture explores how cities can foster shared, public forms of living with animals, focusing on street dogs in Istanbul. Rather than ownership, human–dog relations emerge through everyday acts of care such as feeding, observing, and tending, shaped by both familiarity and tension. These relationships are continuously challenged by municipal interventions like capture and confinement, yet informal practices of care persist. The talk highlights how coexistence is an ongoing negotiation between violence and care, rooted in history and urban conditions. In times of ecological crisis, these fragile yet resilient interactions suggest alternative futures based on mutuality, proximity, and shared responsibility.