How do we design visualizations that not only represent, but actively protect, nurture, and respect the environments and communities embedded within datasets?
As the world becomes increasingly shaped by algorithmic systems and automated decision-making, visualization must evolve beyond a purely technical act. It becomes an ethical, cultural, and emotional process. How can data visualization embody collective care? What practices emerge when we approach visualizing data as a responsible, thoughtful, and caring act?
VISAP 2025 invites participants to reimagine data not as static or neutral, but as a living archive, a vessel for memory, identity, and shared histories. In this context, care is not sentimentality; it is relational and collective. It acknowledges the responsibilities we bear toward the data we use and the lives it represents. We are called to visualize with empathy to illuminate environmental issues, uncover hidden collective stories, surface silenced narratives, and expose systemic biases.
VISAP 2025: Collective Care seeks works that explore data through frameworks of reciprocity, solidarity, and ethical collaboration. We welcome projects that resist extractive or exploitative data practices and instead propose alternative aesthetics and methodologies rooted in care, as data is never neutral. From speculative design to AI co-authorship, from community-centered storytelling to environmental data engagement, we are looking for work that reimagines the relationship between data, technology, and humanity.
In embracing collective care, we advocate for a future in which data visualization becomes a process not only for insight, but for restoration, connection, and long-term social resilience. We ask: What becomes possible when data is treated as a space for healing, resistance, and belonging? How can we co-author meaning with algorithms with care, and engage AI as a collaborator in envisioning critical, thoughtful, future-oriented ideations? How might we take care of our environment and close-related communities by making use of data visualization? And when we give data physical form, how might the materials we choose and their environmental impact reflect the values of care we uphold?
Flowing through these questions and across disciplines, VISAP 2025: Collective Care invites submissions of original papers, pictorials, and artworks for presentation in two interrelated tracks (papers/pictorials and exhibition) as part of the IEEE VIS conference. We welcome contributions across a range of themes, including but not limited to:
- Creative work that transforms data into acts of care and empathy
- Visualizations that reflect cultural knowledge, collective memory, and identity
- Community-driven data practices and participatory design
- Algorithmic storytelling and human–machine collaboration
- Anti-colonial and decolonial approaches to data and visualization
- Environmental, eco-critical, and more-than-human data engagements
- Visual strategies for social impact, protest, and activism
- Equitable data design in global, local, and Indigenous contexts
- Experimental, poetic, and speculative visualizations of care and connection
- Tools and systems that challenge power, bias, and omission in datasets
- Environmentally conscious approaches, utilizing sustainable, low-impact, or reclaimed materials
About VISAP’25
The VIS Arts Program (VISAP) is a dedicated mini-conference and exhibition that brings together visualization researchers, designers, and artists to explore the intersections of data visualization, art, and design. VISAP’25 offers a dynamic platform for both international and local participants to exchange ideas, present conceptual innovations, and investigate a wide range of transdisciplinary connections. As the largest affiliated event within the IEEE VIS conference, VISAP serves as a bridge between media arts practitioners, data scientists, graphic designers, and theorists, encouraging dialogue and fostering collaboration across disciplines of research and creative practice.
Contributions responding to this year’s theme, Collective Care, may be submitted to either the papers/pictorials track or the exhibition track. VISAP 2025 will be held fully in person, offering participants the opportunity to engage face-to-face. For artists and researchers based in Austria, there will be additional chances to connect with the broader VISAP and local arts community through talks, workshops, and related programming at our Vienna venue.
Accepted works will be published on the official VISAP website and included in a printed exhibition catalog. Papers and pictorials will be formally indexed in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.
We encourage artists to collaborate with artificial intelligence as a creative partner in the production of data-driven work. However, the VISAP committee will critically assess the role of AI in each submission, considering its relevance, ethical use, and creative intention. If your work involves AI-generated components, please clearly acknowledge them in your submission.
Supporters
VISAP 2025 is possible thanks to the support of:
Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design
