About Earth Speakr
Today, the Earth Speakr website hosts and celebrates over 10,000 messages recorded by kids about the future of our planet – messages that are brilliant, funny, and heartbreakingly honest. It is a testament to the importance of listening to the next generations, as we adults make crucial decisions that inevitably affect their future.
As an artwork Earth Speakr couldn’t have been made alone. It emerged rather through the collective, creative effort of kids around the world. I believe that such accessible, borderless spaces, driven by creative expression, can bring us together to connect and share perspectives, while celebrating our differences. It is my hope that Earth Speakr has empowered kids across the EU and beyond by showing them that they too are able to share their worries and opinions with those who need to hear them.
- Olafur Eliasson, Earth Day, 2022
Earth Speakr was started by artist Olafur Eliasson and took shape with the input and ideas of its community. Earth Speakr speaks your language – it also speaks the 24 official languages of the European Union and can be accessed throughout the world.
Kids used the Earth Speakr app to record their ideas about the wellbeing of our planet. Adults are invited to participate by listening to the messages, sharing these with others, and amplifying the powerful messages kids have made.
Over half a million people around the world have downloaded the Earth Speakr app. More than 70 languages have been spoken within the app, from more than 120 countries around the world. The messages have been listened to by the general public over 3 million times through the Earth Speakr app and website.
Who is behind Earth Speakr?
Earth Speakr was created by Olafur Eliasson with his studio, kids, creative partners, and a group of researchers and experts, and was initially (2019-2020) funded by the Federal Foreign Office on the occasion of the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2020 and realised in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut.
About Olafur Eliasson
Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967) works with sculpture, painting, photography, film, installation, and digital media. His art is driven by his interests in perception, movement, embodied experience, and feelings of self and community. Not limited to the confines of the museum and gallery, his practice engages the public through architectural projects, interventions in civic space, arts education, policy-making, and climate action. Since the mid-1990s, Eliasson has realised numerous major exhibitions and projects around the world. In 2019, he was named UNDP Goodwill Ambassador for climate action and the sustainable development goals.
Located in Berlin, Studio Olafur Eliasson comprises a large team of craftsmen, architects, archivists, researchers, administrators, cooks, art historians, and specialised technicians.
