In This Together
AN OPEN CALL FOR GIFS TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
Art has the power to inspire us and help us find hope in these difficult and uncertain times. As many people struggle to stay home and safe, and others put themselves at risk each day to help with essential needs, artists play a unique role and can help strengthen our communities, build resilience and encourage healthy behavior.
IN THIS TOGETHER is an open call for GIFs that invites artists to inspire and support their communities and encourage healthy and safe behavior. Join artists from across the country using their talents to bring us all closer together at a time of unprecedented distance and isolation.
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
- Toni Morrison
How it works
CREATE.
Design an original GIF that responds to one of these four themes:
Continue Staying Home
Isolated But Not Alone
We Get Through This Together
Self Care
SUBMIT.
Upload your work to our submission portal using this form.
SHARE.
Spread your message of strength and resilience as widely as you can on your own social media and design platforms.
Spread the word.
Invite other designers, animators, artists and creators to participate and help make an even bigger impact.
View the Official Rules
Timeline
May 20
IN THIS TOGETHER launches and opens for entries.
May 29
Submissions must be received by 11:59 p.m. ET.
June 1-2
Submissions reviewed by judges for final selection.
June 3
Winning selections announced.
Meet The Judges
Axel Alonso
Axel Alonso is Chief Creative Officer AWA Studios/ Upshot Studios. He was formerly the Editor-in-Chief at Marvel Comics.
Will Cady
Will Cady is Head of Brand Strategy at Reddit, where he leads a team finding homes for brands in Reddit’s vast ecosystem of every online community imaginable.
Elyse Fox
Elyse Fox is a director, mental health activist and model from New York. She founded Sad Girls Club to combat the stigma around mental health for people of color.
Favianna Rodriguez
Favianna Rodriguez is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural strategist, and social justice activist based in Oakland, California.
Fred Seibert
Fred Seibert is the founder of Frederator Networks, the Chief Creative Officer of WOW! Unlimited Media, and a serial media entrepreneur.
Open Call Themes
Keep Staying At Home
#STAYHOME Unless our work is an ‘essential business’ we #StayHome.
We #StayHome not just because we must, but because we know that by doing so we are protecting our friends, our families and our community from the spread of the disease. We #StayHome to give our healthcare workers and frontline workers the chance they need to care for the infected. We #StayHome to stay alive ourselves… and it’s working.
So while all of us are eager to return to some form of normalcy, we will continue to #StayHome, as hard as it may be, until our officials and medical representation believe it is safe to come together again.
We’ll Get Through This Together
It is times of great crisis, times like these, that we become keenly aware of interconnectedness.
We can take pride in our ability to survive and thrive in isolation while also understanding the role that our essential workers play in maintaining our complex shared resources - our food supplies, our healthcare, our electricity, our waste management, our delivery systems. We will emerge through this crisis, many of us having experienced the trauma of loss, with a sense of interdependence and a new found gratitude for the work of our public service sector and the role each of can and do play in lifting our family, our friends, our neighbors and communities.
Each and every one of us will do our best to survive, and together we will come together - in isolation - to ensure that we will be able to, once again, thrive.
Isolated But Not Alone
Some of us shelter in place with our families, others with our partners, some of us with our pets, others by ourselves - but the reality is that while we are physically separated we never have to be disconnected and/or alone.
Each and every one of us feels the pressure and the loneliness of being disconnected from the physical proximity to our community, but we are fortunate to live in a time when technology enables us to stay connected.
Reach out to your friends and family, and know that love is maintained even when we are apart.
Self-Care
From maintaining some semblance of routine, to moving our bodies; from feeling the sunlight on our faces, to finding purpose and meaning in our lives, we must all take care to not allow the stresses of our lives to overwhelm us.
We can understand and acknowledge that everyone is going through something and our emotions and feelings are valid while also doing our best to maintain the kind of self-care practices we need in order to maintain our mental and physical help.
We can find some peace, comfort and serenity by connecting with our family, our friends and any needed support services. We can invest in our calm through breath, laughter and even an occasional break out moment of dance.
Our mental health matters and we are worth the investment.
IN THIS TOGETHER is sponsored by tenor
More than 300 million people use Tenor every month to communicate with an animated GIF that expresses their exact thoughts or feelings.
ABOUT US
We believe that artists help us make sense of the world around us. They help us challenge injustice, question what we accept as normal, manifest new futures and inspire us into action. When artists and activists come together, when creativity and organizing combine, lasting answers emerge.
At Into Action, that’s where we come in: creating spaces, moments, and opportunities for arts, culture, and organizing to intersect and create lasting social change. Through in-person activations, open calls, and the ongoing creation of new and innovative art, we help make the world a better place.