“a garden” begins to grow in Paris
Giga, a partnership between UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is pleased to announce the launch of a garden, a work of generative art by Cole Sternberg. Giga commissioned the California-based conceptual artist to create a garden as a visual means of enriching, intensifying, and illuminating the global school connectivity data encompassed by Giga Blocks. The ongoing project will comprise over one million unique digital pieces, each reflecting and responding to the evolving real-world conditions within Giga’s adaptive school database. On Thursday, November 13th, a garden will be unveiled to the public at Paris Photo 2025 on the Balcon d’Honneur of the Grand Palais as part of the art fair’s Digital Sector, curated by Nina Roehrs.
Giga is working to connect every school in the world to the Internet and every young person to information, opportunity, and choice. Since its establishment in 2019, Giga and its partners have mapped over 2.2 million schools and supported increased access to connectivity to more than 24,000 schools, benefiting approximately 11 million students.
“More than 1.3 billion children still don’t have access to good internet. Giga is working to solve this problem, and with the launch of “a garden”, a million schools will now have an online identity; their locations and connectivity status is captured on a blockchain Cole’s unique artworks give life to the critical issue and the generosity of Nina Roehrs and Paris Photo allow us to share this unique moment with the world” stated Chris Fabian, Giga Co-Lead.
Each Giga-connected school will have its own piece of a garden. Every school will also have their own, unique digital identity, making their connectivity status publicly viewable on the blockchain. Sternberg’s art reflects and responds to the evolving real-world conditions within Giga’s adaptive school database and references flora native to the region of each school. a garden is one of the largest collections to date of on-chain data interwoven with generative digital art and will serve as the foundation for creating digital networks and access for children.
Artist Cole Sternberg explained, “The Giga Initiative is the most revolutionary movement in global education in many years. How the data is collected and where it leads communities is changing the lives of children at a scale impossible to truly comprehend. My goal with a garden is multifaceted. By providing unique digital paintings for each school that adapt to their locality, coverage area, and connectivity, my hope is to add a visual, soulful richness to the data while providing a special marker for each school and starting each school’s discussion of their newfound connectivity with the creative arts at the forefront.”
By situating the digital divide within the cultural framework of Paris Photo 2025, this collaboration highlights both the urgency and humanity of universal Internet access. While access is often seen as a technical issue, with almost 1.3 billion children still offline, Sternberg’s art humanizes an issue that can otherwise be invisible. Guided by the transformative power of art, Giga and Sternberg invite the public to reflect on what connectivity means in the 21st century and to imagine a world where every young person has access to information, opportunity, and choice. Paris Photo’s generous partnership creates a space where technology blossoms into art and data becomes a language of connection, allowing Giga to launch a collection with deep and ongoing resonance.
For more information visit a garden’s site by clicking here.
