Medialab-Matadero Madrid
Seminar Interactivos?’19: Eating against the collapse (February 14th -15th)
Throughout the month of February, Medialab Prado will be organising the workshop Interactivos?’19: Eating against the collapse, the inevitable end of the agroindustry food model , which on this occasion, will focus on the futures of food, in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals.
The workshop will be inaugurated on 14 and 15 February with an international seminar that will include a series of talks featuring experts on ecofeminism, ecology, environmental collapse, economy and activism such as Vandana Shiva, Richard Heinberg, Malik Yakini, Margarita Mediavilla, Janaina Strozake and Yayo Herrero.
About the Interactivos'19 workshop
Interactive? is a programme that began in 2006 and that each year celebrates an international collaborative prototyping workshop that addresses different issues through creative experimentation using free hardware and software tools. For this particular edition of Interactivos?’19, eight projects have been selected that will be developed in a collaborative way between 14 February and 2 March, focusing on the world of food in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Also in March, once Interactive? has come to an end, work will continue in the Data Journalism’19 workshop, with this same perspective, i.e. the futures of food.
Opening seminar: 14 and 15 February
The aim of the international Interactivos?’19 seminar is to delve into the issue of food in a context of collapse, following a logical sequence so that workshop participants may incorporate it into their projects, and so that it can provide them with specific tools that they may find useful in its work. Anyone who is interested may attend the talks that form part of the Seminar; entrance is free until all seats are taken. There will be simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English.
The seminar will begin with presentations by the workshop’s three mentors, Luis González Reyes, founding partner of Garúa S. Coop. Mad, Cathrine Kramer, founder of the Center for Genomic Gastronomy art collective and Juan Sánchez García (Nany) member of the Association for the Development of Permaculture (ADP).
In addition, there will also be talks by Richard Heinberg (Post Carbon Institute), Malik Yakini (Detroit Black Community Food Security Network), Margarita Mediavilla (Energy, Economy and System Dynamics Group at the University of Valladolid), Janaina Strozake (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra), Vandana Shiva (Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology) and Yayo Herrero (Ecologists in Action).
Seminar programme
Thursday 14 February, evening (4 - 8.30pm):
- Presentation of Interactivos?’19 and the inaugural seminar (4 - 4.15pm)
- Initial presentation of 4 Interactivos?’19 projects (4.15 - 5.15pm)
- Richard Heinberg (5.15 - 6.15pm): The energy and material scenario. Current context of global crisis.
- Juan Sánchez García (Nany) (6.30 - 7.30pm): The foundations of permaculture as a tool for the food of the future.
- Catherine Kramer (7.30 - 8.30pm): How to turn food into art through specific experiences.
Friday 15 February, morning (10am - 2pm):
- Initial presentation of 2 Interactivos?’19 projects (10.15 - 10.45am)
- Marga Mediavilla (10.45 - 11.45am): Possible future scenarios of the contemporary global crisis.
- Initial presentation of 2 Interactivos?’19 projects (12 - 12.30pm)
- Luis González Reyes (12.30 - 1.30pm): The global crisis and future scenarios at the food level. How to communicate and educate in collapse.
- Discussion of the projects (1.30 - 2pm)
Friday 15 February, evening (4 - 8.30pm):
- Vandana Shiva (4 - 5pm): The importance of agroecology and the impacts of the agroindustry model.
- Janaina Strozake (5 - 6pm): Experience of rural agroecology (MST).
- Malik Yakini (6.30 - 7.30pm): Experience of urban agroecology (Detroit).
- Yayo Herrero (7.30 - 8.30pm): Political measures to ensure that the scenarios that may materialize in the future are fair and democratic.
Biographies of the speakers
Luis González Reyes (Interactivos?’19 Mentor)
Member of Ecologists in Action, since its foundation and until 2015 he formed part of its Confederal Secretariat, and for nine years, he acted as Co-coordinator. Professionally, he is a partner in Garúa S. Coop. Mad., where he is active training and carrying out research into topics related to environmentalism and pedagogy. From this position, he collaborates regularly with several universities. He also works in FUHEM, where he is responsible for the “ecosocialisation” of their three schools. This includes multiple tasks, such as the coordination of ecological school canteens, drafting a curriculum for all the different stages with an ecosocial approach, and running a blog on educational resources called tiempodeactuar.es. He is author or co-author of a dozen books with contents that cover different facets of social environmentalism.
Cathrine Kramer (Interactivos?’19 Mentor)
Cathrine Kramer works internationally as an artist and curator. She is co-founder of two think tanks led by artists: The Center for Genomic Gastronomy, and CoClimate. In 2014, she received the VIDA International Prize for Art and Artificial Life for her work in The Centre for Genomic Gastronomy. THE CENTRE FOR GENOMIC GASTRONOMY examines biotechnologies and the biodiversity of human food systems. Its mission is to: Map food controversies; prototype future culinary alternatives; imagine a fairer, more biologically diverse and more beautiful food system. The Centre presents its research through public conferences, research publications, meals and exhibitions. Cathrine has also received a remuneration for young artists from the Norwegian Art Board (Arbeidsstipend for yngre / nyetablerte kunstnarar). She has lectured at numerous academic institutions throughout the world and she holds a degree from the Royal College of Art in London and from the University of Technology in Sydney. Cathrine works at the intersection of art and science, focusing on the ecological, cultural and ethical dimensions of life on Spaceship Earth.
Juan Sánchez García, 'Nany' (Interactivos?’19 Mentor)
Juan is a professor of Economics at the University of La Laguna, and designer of innovative educational experiences at the Finca del Mato Tinto, one of the most attractive experiences of the permaculture project, run by the Association for the Development of Permaculture (A.D.P.), a non-profit entity set up in Tacoronte (Tenerife) in 2001. It was declared an entity of public utility in 2011. Permaculture is a system of agricultural and social, political and economic design principles based on the patterns and characteristics of the natural ecosystem for a sustainable life together.
Richard Heinberg is an American ecologist and university professor who specialises in issues related to the environmental and social aspects of the use of energy and its sources, and, in particular, those relating to the consequences resulting from theories of oil depletion. He is a core member of the Post Carbon Institute, author of 13 books, and he is regarded as one of the world’s leading champions for a change in our current reliance on fossil fuels. He is the author of numerous essays and articles that have appeared in such magazines as Nature, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, The American Prospect, Public Policy Research, Quarterly Review, Yes!, and The Sun.
Malik Kenyatta Yakini is the Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, and as an activist and educator he is committed to freedom and justice for Africans in particular and for humanity in general. He spearheaded efforts to establish the Food Policy Council of Detroit, which he currently chairs. He is a member of the facilitation team Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System.
Malik is dedicated to working to identify and alleviate the impact of racism and white privilege in the food system. He is intensely interested in contributing to the development of an international food sovereignty movement that encompasses black farmers in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa. He sees the “good food revolution” as part of a larger movement for freedom, justice and equality. Yakini has spoken at many local community meetings and national conferences on food justice and the implementation of community food safety practices.
Holder of a degree in Physical Sciences and a PhD from the University of Valladolid. She is currently a professor in the Department of Systems and Automation Engineering at the School of Industrial Engineering at that same University. She focused her lines of research on control engineering and robotics until 2003, when she turned her attention to energy and sustainability.
She has collaborated for years in various social groups and organisations such as Universitas 3M, the Network of Consumers of Organic Products, and the Assembly of Cyclists. She is a member of Ecologists in Action in Valladolid.
A farmer and professor at the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF), historian, and coordinator of the Basque Country Agroecology and Food Sovereignty Course. Member of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), (Brazil).
She is an Indian philosopher and writer. An activist for ecofeminism, she received the Right Livelihood Award —also referred to as the Alternative Nobel Prize—, in 1993. Vandana Shiva has fought to change practices and paradigms of agriculture and food. Shiva has contributed intellectually and through activist campaigns in such areas as intellectual property rights, biodiversity and bioethics. At the same time, with her campaigns against genetic engineering she has helped Green Movement social struggle organisations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Ireland, Switzerland and Austria.
With respect to the Right to Intellectual Property and Biodiversity, together with her team at the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, Dr Shiva successfully fought against the biopiracy of the Neem tree (Azadirachta indica), Basmati rice, and wheat. Her first book, Staying Alive (1988), helped to redefine the perception of women in the third world. Shiva has worked as an advisor to governments in India and overseas, and in several non-governmental organisations including the International Forum on Globalisation, the Women’s Environment & Development Organisation and the Third World Network. Dr Shiva is member of the Scientific Committee that advised the former prime minister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Time Magazine identified Shiva as an environmental “heroine” in 2003, and Asia Week nominated her as one of the five most powerful communicators in Asia.
Born in Madrid, she is an anthropologist, engineer, professor and activist Spanish ecofeminist. She is one of the most influential researchers in ecofeminism and ecosocialism at the European level. She is a member of Ecologists in Action.
Herrero’s research focuses on the current ecological crisis derived from the capitalist development and production model. In this sense, she argues that while capitalism in itself cannot exist without economic growth, indefinite growth is impossible in a physical world that has limits. Furthermore, she also argues that superfluous jobs prevail in this economic model, while the work that makes it possible to sustain human life, such as agricultural production or reproductive work, is totally precarious or directly excluded from whatsoever remuneration.
In this way, she proposes a transition towards a different economic model, one that takes the social inclusion of all people into account, and is compatible with the regenerative capacity of nature.
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Follow the Interactivos?’19 programme on the social networks through these hashtags:
#interactivos19 #alimentaciónFuturo #CitizenScience #H2020 #cicilab