Let’s show the world with artivism how citizens can organise from the grassroots to regenerate the world!
The collective Zurciendo el Planeta – which literally means “Darning the planet” – invites individuals and collectives taking action to protect the planet and look after each other, to join us and be part of a massive piece of collective textile art that can reflect the power of collective action at local level.
- Are you worried about the unsustainable social and environmental situation locally and globally?
- Are you part of a neighbourhood, work or community group who are developing local actions to live the world you dream of?
- Are you part of a group of stitchers and would you like to propose a collective environmental reflection within the group?
This project is for you!
Why so much collective effort?
We believe that this project will strengthen local grassroots groups and collectives and will help to build hope in the communities that see what we are able to create all together.
This artivist or craftivist project is intended to help us make more visible and believable the community action in which we are engaged in, to value it, learn from other community groups and to gather the experiences to inspire and multiply grassroots action. We need more citizens to know and believe that they also are able to start a new project. Read more about:
Why so much collective effort?
We have prepared 3 open access creative guides for you to choose how you can participate in the project, but we do encourage you first to read a bit more about Collective Zurciendo el Planeta and the Forest of Hope. We hope they will inspire you to start your creation.
Take me directly to the Creative guides:
Guidelines to get started
Collective Zurciendo el Planeta
We are people (mainly women) concerned about the environment and seeking to express ourselves as part of nature in used textiles, an artistic medium with minimal environmental impact, because textiles and old clothes already exist in excess.
Read more about the collective:
Our guiding thread
More about the history of the collective below:
Stitching a forest
Why it’s important to reuse textiles
Our plan for 2025 is to reforest our Forest of Hope with more stories of hope.
What is the Forest of Hope?
In 2021, the (then) 14 members of the collective decided to start creating trees out of rescued fabrics to take a Forest of Hope to COP26. Over the next 3 months, more than 140 hopeful voices joined us across Latin America and Europe: we received 157 stitched trees.
The Collective came into existence at the end of 2020 and the Forest of Hope was one of our first projects. Since we started stitching trees in 2021, we have not stopped. There are already more than 700 trees created with love, care and much hope in América and Europe.
This is the short version of the story of the collective. We do recommend you read the more detailed account of the collective here:
Bosque de Esperanza (2021-2024)
Experiences like this confirmed to us what was also revealed by the Global Climate Change Survey (2024):
- 86 % of the global population endorse proclimate social norms
- 89% of respondents globally state that their national government should do more to address global warming
- 69% express a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income to address environmental issues
The same study highlights that although they found high levels of concern across global societies, they also detected that “individuals around the globe strongly underestimate their fellow citizens’ actual willingness to contribute to the common good”, which means that most people who are anxious feel that they are the only ones worrying.
Read the full article in Nature Climate Change (2024) Globally representative evidence on the actual and perceived support for climate action
Many people do not know how to take action to protect what they love, which leads to them doing nothing and perceiving that noone is doing anything. So they continue to believe that there are very few people concerned about environmental degradation worldwide.
On the other hand, we know that there are many collective and neighbourhood initiatives moving towards a more just and regenerative society, as we have always wanted to reflect in the Forest of Hope.
From 2022 to 2024, in addition to tripling the number of trees, other new species joined them in the Forest of Hope: animals, mushrooms and other non-tree plant species. We also received some 20 collective pieces that represented local collective actions in the barrios – neighbourhoods – of Latin America. They populated the Forest of Hope with concrete examples of hope so it has become a great ecosystem where humans are just one more species in nature and play a positive role in her regeneration.
Have a look at the first collective pieces in the Forest of Hope:
Collective creations (Bordados colectivos)
This year we are inviting you to join in our ARTivist proposals. Bring your collective action, regenerating and caring for the planet and its inhabitants, into the forest! The Collective Zurciendo el Planeta invites you to become part of this Ecosystem to Rebuild Hope, so you can re-value your own action, make it more visible in your community or region and we can together create a gigantic collective mural during the UN Climate Conference COP 30 in Belem, Brazil in November 2025.
We are still creating trees and all flora and fauna for the forest in order surround the representations of collective action with the abundance of life of the Forest of Hope.
What do I do and how?
Continue to the Guidelines to get started that will show you three ways to participate in the great 2025 collective creation that will showcase the diversity of actions in defense of nature and the common good around the world.