Call COAL PRIZE 2026 : The Night

We oppose day and night even though they form a single living unity, traversed by opposites. For us, diurnal beings so dependent on sight, night often begins with a loss. Between dusk and dawn, it suspends time, veils the world, compels withdrawal. The certainties of day recede, uncertainty rises to the surface, and this is perhaps why it remains the time of contemplation and storytelling, where, in anticipation of the coming day, dreams and imagination awaken. Night displaces the sovereignty of the image.

But it is retreating, bleached, colonized by the boundless spread of artificial lights on land, at sea, in the sky, until the Milky Way itself is erased from our memories. Skyglow, the halo of artificial light suspended like a dome above cities, can be read from space. Outside urban centers, the multiplication of small illuminated pockets fragments the night, cuts continuities, turns corridors into dead ends, and sets lethal traps for birds, insects, and so many other species disoriented by an excess of light.

For some thirty years now, the term nocturnal environment has taken hold to name this threatened vital milieu. A majority of animals live at night. In landscapes saturated with human presence, darkness sometimes becomes the last interval in which to move without being seen, without being driven off one’s path. It opens times for migrations, mating, pollination and crossings. The recent concept of the dark ecological network perfectly expresses the urgency of thinking about night as a network of continuities of darkness to be preserved.

The people of the night live in a world of listening and olfaction, where one locates oneself through rhythms, echoes, aerosols, and wafts of scent. Night changes the grammar of the world. Even flora changes its diction. Some flowers open at night and perfume the air to attract specific pollinators.

It is also an essential time of regeneration for organisms and metabolisms, a discreet workshop where energies and balances are redistributed, where excesses are repaired. The nocturnal drop in temperatures contributes to cooling soils and the atmosphere and supports water cycles. Artificially prolonged daytime weakens these functions. The exhaustion of the world also stems from the drift toward continuous operation, twenty-four hours a day, which denies alternation and consumes bodies and environments alike. Darkness and rest are, nonetheless, vital necessities.

To borrow Édouard Glissant’s expression, night calls for a right to opacity, recognizing the importance of being able to elude the imperatives of transparency and visibility. In politics, night signifies both vigilance and eclipse. A place of welcome for resistance and marginality, it is the chosen time of those who hold on when day closes nights of assemblies and vigils. Nuit Debout offered a clear image of this. But conversely, it can also designate the dark times of totalitarian powers. This is the paradox of night: it emancipates when it shifts the social clock to open a common space; it oppresses when it obscures thought.

The COAL Prize 2026 invites artists to defend the night as a common good, a major ecological issue for the regeneration of life, a refuge, a diversity of languages to be celebrated, a right to rest and to darkness. Inventing stories to relearn how to inhabit the shadows, creating art with the night, is to contribute to an ecology of rhythms. Restoring the fear of the night is a perfect antidote to anthropocentrism, because it forces us to be humble, confronting us with the depths of the sky, the intimacy of the vast, the immensity of the cosmos.

DISCOVER THE COAL PRIZE  2026

At the same time, a call for projects is open for the COAL Student Prize, aimed at students from arts and culture schools > The art projects appel à projets student call rigth here

CALENDAR

Closing of the call for projects: April 28, 2026

Announcement of nominated artists: Summer 2026

Announcement of winners: Autumn 2026

Award ceremony: Autumn 2026, on the occasion of Sans Réserve, the gathering for committed ecological creation

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Ten artists are nominated by a selection committee of professionals for their projects submitted in response to this international call for entries. The Prix COAL and its special mentions are awarded from among these ten projects by a jury made up of representatives of the partner organizations and personalities from the fields of art and ecology. In addition, all the entries considered by COAL and the selection committee help to make known artists and projects that may be solicited or promoted according to other opportunities and actions carried out by the association and its partners.

The composition of the jury will be announced in the spring.

 CRITERIA

Artistic value, relevance to the issues, originality (new approaches, themes, or perspectives), pedagogy (ability to convey a message and raise awareness), social and participatory approach (engagement, testimony, efficiency, societal impact), eco-design, project feasibility, and collaboration with nature conservation actors are taken into account. The COAL Prize supports artistic projects in progress or forthcoming. Its grant is not intended to cover the full production costs of the project and should be considered as support for its development.

APPLICATION FILE AND SUBMISSIONS

The application file must consist of the following documents, compiled into a single PDF file named SURNAME_First name_2025_Project title (the file must not exceed 30 MB):

– the application form, available for download HERE

– A detailed description of the proposed project, presenting its artistic dimension, its relevance to the theme, as well as a technical note and a budget estimate

– At least two HD visuals illustrating the project

– A Curriculum Vitae and an artistic portfolio

All proposals must be submitted by 23:59 on 20 April 2026 at the latest, via the COAL server :  upload.projetcoal.org

By participating in this call, the authors of the projects expressly authorize the COAL association and its partners to publish, reproduce, and publicly distribute all or part of the elements of their project for any purpose related to the promotion and communication of the COAL Prize, on any medium, by any means, in any country, in the event of nomination, as well as on the Transformative Territories platform dedicated to transformative artistic practices. Submitted projects that are not selected will remain in the archives of the COAL association and may be consulted by the association’s partners. They remain the property of their authors. Participation in this call for projects constitutes full acceptance of the above conditions.

GRANTS

– The artist awarded the COAL Prize receives a grant of €12,000 and a creative residency at the heart of the Domaine de Belval, property of the François Sommer
Foundation, supported by the scientific and educational teams of the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature and those
of the Domaine de Belval. A true observatory of rural life and wildlife, the estate hosts selected artists each year for the relevance of their contribution to renewing the vision of the human relationship with the natural environment.

– The artist awarded the Special Jury Prize receives a grant of €3,000.- The artist awarded the Ateliers Médicis mention benefits from a residency in Clichy-sous-Bois/Montfermeil, in connection with the regional forest of Bondy.
– The artist awarded the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles/Paris mention, also known as Le Vaisseau, receives a grant of €2,000 and will be invited to exhibit at the Parisian institution.

PARTNER 2026

The COAL Prize 2026 receives financial support from the Ministry of Culture, the French Office for Biodiversity, the Museum of Hunting and Nature, the François Sommer Foundation and the LAccolade Foundation, as well as a partnership with the Ateliers Médicis and the Wallonia Brussels/Paris Centre.

French Ministry of Culture

Beyond its primary mission of making the major works of humanity, and first and foremost those of France, accessible to as many people as possible, the Ministry of Culture is convinced that culture must play a full role in the vast undertaking of the ecological transition, and has been committed to this cause since 2010 through successive strategies. Since 2023, the Ministry of Culture’s strategy has been defined within a guidance and inspiration framework that sets a course for the ecological transition of cultural stakeholders. The Ministry of Culture has supported the COAL Prize since its inception in 2010.

French Office for Biodiversity (OFB)

The OFB is responsible for the protection and restoration of biodiversity in mainland France and overseas territories. It works to preserve living systems in aquatic, terrestrial, and marine environments through the expertise of its 2,800 staff members, including 1,700 environmental inspectors. This public institution also operates by mobilizing a wide range of stakeholders, decision-makers, and citizens around biodiversity: the State, local authorities, associations, businesses, scientists, farmers, fishers, hunters, outdoor sports practitioners, and actors from the art world…

Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature and the François Sommer Foundation

Recognised as a public utility from its creation on November 30, 1966, the Foundation was envisioned by François and Jacqueline Sommer, pioneers in the realisation of a humanist ecology. Faithful to the commitments of its founders, it works for the protection of a biodiversity in which humans find their rightful place, for the respectful use of natural resources, and for the sharing of the riches of natural, artistic, and cultural heritage.

L’Accolade Foundation – Institut de France

The Foundation promotes artistic creation that is aware of its environment and supports approaches, projects, and actions led by artists in connection with the themes of water, the environment, the fragility of life, and the feminine, through research and creation residencies, and exhibitions in France and the United States. Furthermore, it safeguards the “matrimony,” that is, the legacy of women who have had historical or artistic significance.

Ateliers Médicis

Committed to bringing forth new and diverse artistic voices and supporting artists with singular and contemporary languages, Ateliers Médicis hosts artists of all disciplines in residence and supports the creation of works conceived in connection with the territories. They promote or organize encounters between artists and residents. Located in Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, they occupy a prefabricated building. A large-scale, nationally ambitious facility will be constructed by 2025, reaffirming the place of artistic creation in the suburbs.

Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles/Paris

Through a resolutely de-sanctuarizing and a-trans-indisciplinary programming, the Centre is mandated to disseminate and highlight the work of artists based in the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. It thus promotes both emerging and established approaches, from the peripheral to the celebrated.