ArtEO – connecting artists with data and experts to tell Earth’s story

Art and artists, alongside the science and good leadership, are essential to the process of helping society find its way towards solutions to our greatest challenges. In past periods of crisis, from the Renaissance to the wars of the 20^th century, art has been crucial to shifting public engagement and the views of decision makers. Yet the scale of artistic response to climate change, the greatest crisis of all, has been limited by the barriers faced by many artists to accessing data, imagery and evidence to inspire and be directly used in their artistic responses. New tools and services are needed to bring artists and environmental data closer together. A new not-for-profit initiative, ArtEO, has been established, by Imperative Space in conjunction with ESA and other partners in environmental science and the arts, to facilitate easier access to satellite Earth observation imagery and data, and to enable dialogue and expert support from climate scientists. Our presentation will outline the techniques and tools deployed by ArtEO showcase emerging artworks from the first phase of the initiative, and share research insights from the pilot-phase which can be scaled to support future art-science collaborations in the environmental sphere.