George Ripton, Founder, 13AMAcross the globe, a record-breaking cultural milestone is gathering momentum, something no gallery, institution or creative organisation has ever achieved. This week, the 13AM Project 195 – which aims to represent artists from every country on the planet – surpassed the landmark of 100 countries represented.
This positions the self-funded community as the closest the world has ever come to building a truly global art collection and the first to map out a finish line that could reshape the creative world.
With the end now within sight, 13AM has unveiled its most ambitious chapter yet: The Final 13. This ambitious challenge will see founder George Ripton travel across continents to personally find artists in the world’s hardest-to-reach nations, a bold expedition that could complete one of the most significant cultural world-firsts in modern history.
Project 195 began with a simple but urgent idea: if the world is becoming more fractured, creativity must become the thing that brings us back together.
Ripton set out to do something no platform had attempted before, gather one artist from every nation on Earth, including those rarely seen on global cultural stages, forming a creative map of humanity unlike anything that exists today.
Ripton explains, “The final countries won’t be reached by emails or luck. They’ll require physically going there, meeting people face to face, finding creativity in places where the rest of the world rarely looks. It will be challenging, unpredictable and maybe even dangerous at times, but that’s exactly why it matters. Every country deserves representation, not just the easy and safe ones.”
Over the past two years, with no funding, no team, and no institutional support, he has contacted thousands of artists personally, one message at a time, quietly building a global movement.
Today, almost 250 artists have joined the project, representing over 100 countries, with the number expected to climb rapidly over the coming days and weeks.
The project is currently projected to complete in early-to-mid 2026, at which point 13AM would become the first creative brand in history to achieve such a feat.
Ripton has also committed to documenting the feat of physically travelling to the final 13 unrepresented nations, documenting the search as he tracks down artists in places where digital access is limited or nonexistent.
The journey will involve logistical challenges, safety risks, unfamiliar environments, and potentially unpredictable conditions. It is an unprecedented creative challenge, part documentary, part cultural exploration, part global adventure and something no art organisation has ever attempted, let alone attempted to document for the world to follow.
Which countries Ripton will visit depends entirely on which remain by the time the project reaches 182 represented nations.
As it stands, the list could include extreme travel difficulty or high-risk areas such as Libya, Somalia or Burkina Faso; nations notoriously difficult to enter such as North Korea, Eritrea or Turkmenistan, and remote island states such as Comoros or Kiribati. This will become clear in the coming weeks and months as more countries are added, leaving the final 13.
When Project 195 reaches completion, 13AM will stage the first exhibition in history to showcase art from every country on Earth. Not metaphorically or symbolically, but literally, a once-in-human-history moment with artists from all 195 nations standing side by side.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication documenting the full global collective, a documentary series capturing the Final 13 journey, and a long-term programme of international collaborations rooted in one defining message: creativity unites.
Ripton concludes, “This milestone is not about numbers, but about purpose. We need global stories that build connection, not fear. Artists hold a kind of power that politics can’t replicate. When we complete this project, it won’t just be an exhibition, it will be proof that unity is still possible.”
With artists continuing to join daily and planning for the Final 13 campaign now underway, Project 195 is entering the stage where the world will begin to take notice.
What began as a single idea, developed late at night while juggling a full-time job, has evolved into one of the most ambitious creative undertakings of the decade. A legacy project built to create opportunities not only for the artists involved today, but for generations to come.
