Sustainable Food

The dates for the next edition have been set from the 8th to the 13th of June. The programme consists of six intense days of programming that will also include the 14th edition of the Science Festival on Sunday, June 13. Debates, round tables, conferences, talks, performances, installations, exhibitions, and film sessions will be carried out to reflect and debate on the limits of knowledge and science, understood in the broadest sense, as the attitude of questioning everything. Thus, the Biennial will take science to the streets with the aim of opening up and bringing the public closer to the ethical and methodological debates of the scientific world, some of which in times of pandemic are much closer to everyday life, as this health crisis has transformed society’s relationship with science.

The topics on the table will invite us to think about knowledge and debate its limits from various points of view: the advances that are shaping the future, its ethical implications, the close link between science and art, sociology and politics, gender equality in the scientific world, equal rights and opportunities, and the sustainability of the planet. More than a hundred different activities are scheduled to take place over these six days in various venues throughout the city, with the participation of nearly 200 speakers and other invited guests.

Curatorship and sections

This City and Science Biennial has a curatorship made up of nine people who are experts in their field of knowledge. This edition coincides with the fact that Barcelona has been declared World Capital of Sustainable Food in 2021. This is why Sustainable Food is one of the thematic sections, curated by Toni Massanés, gastronome and director of the Alicia Foundation, and Marta G. Rivera, director of the Chair of Agroecology and Food Systems at the University of Vic.

The Biennial will explore the limits between Art and Science in a section with activities created by the philosopher Pau Alsina and the multimedia engineer Irma Vilà, both researchers of the interaction between art, science and technology. The activities curated by Ricard Solé, ICREA research professor at the UPF and director of the Complex Systems Laboratory, will provide a glimpse of The Future of Humanity in the context of new knowledge and its frontiers. Precisely, the Ethics and Philosophy surrounding the limits of this knowledge will be the subject of debate in another section, curated by Begoña Román, professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona and president of the Ethics Committee of Social Services of Catalonia.

In this scenario, Regenerative Medicine and Bioengineering play a prominent role, which is why these disciplines are the focus of the section proposed by Núria Montserrat, ICREA research professor at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia. In addition, the Biennial will analyse how science affects social and political changes, and how these transformations are addressed through research. This will take place with the activities of the Sociology and Politics section, with the curators Joan Font and Ángel Ramírez, researchers at the Institute of Advanced Social Studies of Cordoba. A wide range of activities to experience science and get involved in its debate.