Back in June, Dazed and the digital arts platform CIRCA put out an open call for rising creatives – from filmmakers, to artists and activists, to performers, poets, and gamers – to have their work showcased on large-scale screens across the globe. Now, the list of recent media creators who made it into the CIRCA x Dazed Class of 2022 has finally been unveiled.

After receiving greater than 1,000 artwork submissions, and watching greater than 40 hours of cutting-edge film organised across the theme “A Future World”, CIRCA and Dazed whittled the category all the way down to 30 finalists from across the globe. Each could have their artwork exhibited on massive screens internationally, spanning London (Piccadilly Lights), Berlin (Limes, Kurfürstendamm), Seoul (COEX K-Pop Square), and Melbourne (Fed Square).

One lucky finalist can even be chosen by a panel of industry leaders – including Arca, Martine Syms, Precious Okoyomon, Jefferson Hack, Josef O’Connor, Honey Dijon, Norman Rosenthal, Kandis Williams, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Kay Pallister, Anika Meier, Caleb Femi, Ruth Waters, Laure Prouvost, Guido Gregorio Daminelli, Sophie McElligott and Amar Ediriwira – to receive the £30,000 #CIRCAECONOMY prize, to place toward their artistic practise and produce a 10-minute commission to exhibit on the Piccadilly Lights in 2023.

On top of that, CIRCA and Dazed have introduced a latest, £10,000 money prize, the Piccadilly Lights Prize, for the Class of 2022. This will probably be awarded to a single finalist, based on a public vote – watch all 30 movies, and support your favourite by voting at CIRCA.ART.

“The extent of labor is really mind-blowing,” says Dazed founder Jefferson Hack on this 12 months’s shortlist. “I can’t wait to see the long run visions of the chosen artists [at] Piccadilly Circus. The movies tackle hard hitting issues from climate change to knife crime; they set out latest agendas, from Black trans representation and queer narratives, to feminism and reclaiming space. That is futurism writ large on the most important ad screen in Europe.”

CIRCA founder Josef O’Connor adds that the £30,000 prize will help “create life changing opportunities for the subsequent gen”, noting that it would not be possible without the support of the platform’s exhibiting artists and those that bought prints during the last 12 months. “We couldn’t be prouder to partner again with Dazed and help lift up these 30 emerging talents, whose work shines a vivid light into our future world,” he says.

The CIRCA x Dazed Class of 2022 includes the London and Cairo-based filmmaker Zeina Aref, moving image and performance duo Bhebhe&Davies, Riffy Ahmed, whose film is a short portrait piece a couple of Japanese Geisha pole-dancer, Omar Al-Nakib, whose work crosses the road between real and virtual worlds, Swiss Canadian artist Daria Blum, artists and game dev Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, self-taught animator Toby Cato, Max Colson, whose work focuses on virtual architecture, text-based video artist Nadia Coppola, Harriet Davey, whose animation explores what it means to be human in a digital world, Nina Davies, who explores dance and popular culture, and Theo Ellison, who presents a tearful monologue delivered by a feral pigeon. 

Also featured are filmmaker Oliver Elphick, Sandi Hudson-Francis, a self-taught artist who deals with modern-day immigrant culture, Iranian multidisciplinary artist Katayoun Jalilipour, artist and researcher Andrea Khôra, Brazilian director Guilherme Santos, collaborators Laila Majid and Louis Blue Newby, Leah Clements, who presents personal accounts of disability, Stockholm artist-slash-filmmaker April Lin, moving collage artist Mary Martins, poet, filmmaker, and author Marissa Mireles Hinds.

Andy Picci, meanwhile, creates a dreamlike animation that deconstructs the self and society, joining the Class of 2022 alongside twin brothers Alen and Robi Predanič, Daria Pugachova, Agnes Questionmark, who creates immersive habitats and performances, Spencer Ratanavanh, who researches “the trans body as a glitch”, Yukako Tanaka, who blurs the road between science and advantageous art, Guillaume Vandame and the late Brody Mace-Hopkins, and animator Sophie Vickers.

Watch the Class of 2022 movies on CIRCA, here, and check out the screening schedule below.