TIDAL ArtS Co-Creation Guide

The TIDAL ArtS Co-Creation Guide offers a practical roadmap for bringing artists, scientists, and communities together to address shared challenges in aquatic environments. Rather than treating participation as an add-on, the guide positions co-creation as a process—one built on trust, mutual respect, and long-term engagement.

At its core, the guide emphasizes building trust first. Successful collaboration begins by acknowledging different ways of knowing: scientific expertise, artistic practice, and lived experience. By creating safe spaces for dialogue and listening, partners can surface local priorities and values that shape meaningful action.

The guide also stresses integrating scientific and lived knowledge throughout the creative cycle—from framing questions and designing activities to interpreting results and sharing outcomes. Artists act as translators and connectors, helping complex science become tangible, emotional, and accessible, while communities ground projects in place-based realities.

With its Co-Creation Guide, TIDAL ArtS highlights the importance of continuous engagement, not one-off events. Iterative workshops, shared decision-making, and transparent communication help communities reconnect with rivers, coasts, and wetlands—transforming collaboration into stewardship and lasting care for living waters.

Download the guide here https://tidalarts.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/TIDAL-ArtS_Guidelines-Co-creation-approaches-v2.pdf?vgo_ee=yGH2J3207KPC3wRbtG9Zsxg%2F%2BH1TA0QiV1kbstQ%2Ba8V6bxsSyrk%2BLw%3D%3D%3AE015y3klFTM33XxjdUf6up9dPLHd3FqF

Congratulations to the Baltic/North Sea region artists receiving funding from TIDAL ArtS:

Lithuania: "The Sea Begins Here", filmaker Agnė Marcinkevičiūtė has created a cinematic journey that reveals the Baltic Sea's fragile beauty, the crisis it faces, and the people determined to protect it - a 6,000-kilometre hiking trek around the Baltic Sea, documenting both the ecological crisis and the communities, activists, and scientists committed to addressing it. The documentary combines observational storytelling with intimate personal narratives.

Denmark: "Baltic Code of Signals" artist Isabella Martin created a new visual language for the Baltic Sea through the collaborative design and display of reimagined maritime signal flags. The project will develop a communication system which playfully and powerfully connects people to the Baltic, bridging the gap between the critical state of the sea and peoples’ experience of it.

Germany: "Echoes of the Deep" has Neonature teaming with multimedia artists Kassandra Huynh & Johannes Fuchs created an immersive multimedia exhibition inviting audiences to explore speculative futures of the Baltic Sea—one of the world’s most critically impacted marine environments. Polluted by industrial runoff, littered with WWII munitions, choked by excessive nutrients, and strained by overfishing, the Baltic’s ecological health teeters on the edge. Yet much of this damage remains hidden beneath the surface, leaving many locals unaware of its fragile state and its deep interconnections with their daily lives. Through artistic storytelling, interactive installations, and co-creative engagement, the exhibition fosters community awareness and collective action, encouraging visitors to rethink their relationship with the sea. Bridging science, history, and speculative fiction, “Echoes of the Deep” envisions possible futures, immersing audiences in the Baltic’s urgent environmental challenges while offering pathways toward hope and regeneration.

View all winners at https://tidalarts.eu/lighthouse-artist/?vgo_ee=i85Fra6%2Bl6eCU6nDElrcrI%2Fot%2BHaJ4alGczz6bqYHpMtZoExlmC37g%3D%3D%3AUpc8xI1UXoAdbZrdlFuCX1fVGSE8SVKg