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SPRINTS: Reimagining Democracy - Athens

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This edition of SPRINTS brings together over 100 artists from around the world, including seven based in Greece, to imagine what democracy could look like in the 21st century, not as a system to critique, but as a future worth building toward.

 

SPRINTS is a creative bootcamp developed by Fine Acts, a global nonprofit creative studio for social impact, in partnership with One World or None, a cultural campaign advocating for citizens assemblies and new models of civic participation. Artists, including illustrators, graphic designers, and typographers, work within a limited timeframe to produce striking digital artworks focused on a single issue. The constraint is intentional: rather than polished, overworked concepts, the format pushes artists toward instinctive, bold, and emotionally driven responses. For this edition, that issue is democracy itself, explored not as it currently exists but as it could become. Around the world, trust in institutions is eroding and civic spaces are shrinking, yet alongside this there is a parallel and growing wave of new democratic practices, sometimes called the deliberative wave, that bring ordinary people directly into decisions that shape their lives.

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Working across illustration, design, and typography, the participating artists move deliberately beyond familiar democratic imagery: no ballot boxes, no flags, no political figures. Instead, the work draws on real practices already taking root around the world, including citizens assemblies, participatory budgeting, mutual aid networks, indigenous governance models, and cross-border approaches to collective decision-making. Democracy is treated here not as an institution or a single word tied to elections and parliaments, but as a daily practice, a shared responsibility, and a living system of negotiation and coexistence. Crucially, the brief for the artists leans away from fear, guilt, or despair as a starting point. Research shows that campaigns built purely on crisis and grimness cause people to disengage rather than act, while work rooted in hope, admiration, and possibility is far more likely to move people toward participation. The result is a body of work that is emotionally engaging rather than purely informational, and that speaks across cultures and languages rather than to any single political context.

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The artworks produced through this edition of SPRINTS are unveiled through a public pop-up exhibition shortly after they are completed, giving audiences a first chance to experience the full body of work in person. From there, the pieces are published under an open license on TheGreats.co, meaning they can be freely accessed, adapted, translated, and redistributed by movements, organizers, and communities anywhere in the world. Each artwork becomes part of a growing global commons of creative resources for activism and advocacy, expanding the role artists play as active participants in shaping social change, well beyond the walls of any single exhibition.

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The Athens edition of SPRINTS took place June 20 to 22 at 1927 Art Space in Kypseli, Athens, bringing together seven selected Greek artists: Andreas Brooks, Costas Theoharis, George Kontos, Maria Tsiloumitrou of Studio Chill, Petroula Labrinakou of Little Stone Studio, Rima Lyma (Maria Mylona), and Yorgos Karagiorgos of YOKANIMA. The resulting artworks are unveiled through a public pop-up exhibition and published under an open license on TheGreats.co, meaning they can be freely accessed, adapted, translated, and redistributed by movements, organizers, and communities anywhere in the world, extending each piece's reach well beyond the walls of the exhibition itself.​​​​​

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